Mr. Hall brings extensive experience in the technology and biotechnology sectors, with particular expertise in deal making, strategic planning and market development. Known as a visionary who sees a clear path to success, Mr Hall has proven ability to drive research-based technology into profitable commercialization.

As a serial entrepreneur, Mr. Hall was co-founder and president of Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, taking the company from start-up to profitability and over a billion dollar market cap in seven years. He is also the co-founder and board chair of Creatus Biosciences, co-founder and board director of Arius Technology, co-founder and board chair of Melio Peptide systems. In, addition Mr Hall sits on the board of Epistemics AI. He is also currently the CEO and Chairman of Bast Fibre Technologies. Mr Hall is currently a Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) mentor with CDL rockies stream.

He was also the co-founder and Chairman for Vitaeris Bio which was sold to CSL Behring in June 2020 as well as co former board director for Zymeworks.

Prior to moving to Canada from London in 1997 Mr Hall held a number senior executive positions in the pharmaceutical industry.  

Mr. Hall is currently a director of Machall Investments, a family office focused on the Healthcare, Technology and sustainability sectors .

Dave Johnson has 25+ years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He is currently CEO and founder of SolveTx, a mAb based oncology therapeutics start-up. Prior to SolveTx, Dave was chairman of the precision oncology-focused Lengo Therapeutics, which closed a strategic transaction with BPMC in December 2021 valued at up to $465M. Prior to Lengo, Dave was CEO of VelosBio, an oncology-focused, biopharmaceutical company that he founded in December 2017. Velos created novel monoclonal antibody-based therapeutics, rapidly moving its lead first-in-class ROR1-directed antibody-drug-conjugate VLS-101 (zilovertamab vedotin) from pre-IND through Phase 1 clinical development. Ultimately, VelosBio was acquired by Merck in December 2020 for $2.75B.

Before VelosBio, Dave was with Acerta Pharma, an oncology-focused pharmaceutical company focused on covalent small-molecule technology, where he rose to CEO and built out all facets of the corporation to accelerate the development of Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor acalabrutinib (Calquence), rapidly moving from early- to late-stage clinical development and launching four global registration-directed trials including the accelerated approval study that led to acalabrutinib’s first regulatory approval. Dave’s tenure at Acerta culminated in the execution of a strategic transaction with AstraZeneca valued at $7B.

Dave’s current board roles include: chairman of the board Zentalis Pharmaceuticals (ZNTL), chairman of the board Aura Biosciences (AURA), and board director for the privately held Palleon Pharmaceuticals. Prior to his CEO and board director roles, Dave held various biopharma roles of increasing responsibility with Calistoga Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Gilead Sciences), Gloucester Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Celgene), Millennium (acquired by Takeda), Immunex (acquired by Amgen), and Hoffman La-Roche, making contributions to many drugs garnering regulatory approval. He has raised $750m+ in biopharma capital and created greater than $10B in terminal value. Dave is a coauthor on numerous publications including four New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) manuscripts. He has a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University.

Mr. Robinson has acted as an investment advisor to individuals and institutions for over 30 years. Since April 2014, Mr. Robinson has served as the President of the Robinson Sauder Family Office Inc., a private institutional investment firm. In addition, since June 2018, Mr. Robinson has served as Chairman of the Board of UIT Growth Equity General Partnership Ltd., a private venture investment fund and, since October 2013, as the Chairman and Co-Founder of Arius Technology Inc., a leader in laser-based optical scanning systems. Previously, from January 2016 to September 2020, Mr. Robinson served as Director and Co-Founder of Vitaeris Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the phase III development of the multi-use drug, Clazakizumab. The company was sold in 2020 to CSL Behring of Australia From July 1987 to April 2014, Mr. Robinson worked as an investment advisor, initially at Pemberton Securities, then as Senior Vice President and Investment Advisor at BMO Nesbitt Burns from February 1991 to 1997, and subsequently as Branch Manager, Divisional Manager and finally as s Senior Vice President and Managing Director of BMO British Columbia from March 2003 to April 2014.  Mr. Robinson earned his Chartered Accountant designation from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia in 1984, and his Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of British Columbia in 1982.

Dr. Leavitt is a world-renowned translational neuroscientist and accomplished neurologist with extensive experience in both preclinical therapeutic development and clinical trials for neurodegenerative disorders.

A Senior Scientist at the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, and a full Professor of Medical Genetics and Neurology at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Leavitt completed his undergraduate training and medical degree at McGill University in Montreal. This was followed by a medical internship at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York, and a neurology residency at Cornell and the Harvard Longwood Neurology Program. While in Boston, he also completed a basic neuroscience research fellowship supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada in the laboratory of Dr. Jeffrey Macklis at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital of Boston. Returning to Canada, Dr. Leavitt joined Michael Hayden’s lab at UBC for a Genetics Fellowship before starting his own laboratory.

A long-standing member and former Co-Chair of the Huntington Study Group, Dr. Leavitt is also a member of the European Huntington’s Disease Network, and a member of the Huntington’s Society of America Scientific Advisory Board. He is an established clinical trial investigator who has been involved in more than 25 clinical trials over the last 20 years. He is currently the Director of Research at the UBC Centre for Huntington’s Disease in Vancouver. Dr. Leavitt has an ongoing clinical research program in neurogenetics with a focus on Huntington’s disease (HD). 

A laboratory scientist as well as a clinical neurologist, His research laboratory at UBC’s Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics is dedicated to translational pre-clinical neuroscience, successfully developing and testing new treatments for genetic diseases of the brain and spinal cord. Using genetically-modified mouse models of human disease as his primary tool, Dr. Leavitt’s academic research focuses on developing new therapies for devastating neurodegenerative diseases such as HD, FTD and ALS. Dr. Leavitt is currently the Director of the CMMT Transgenic Animal Facility. His research lab at UBC also includes programs searching for clinical biomarkers in HD and identifying new genetic causes of ataxia, epilepsy, neurodevelopmental disorders, and autism.

Dr. Leavitt is a founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Huntington’s Disease. 

Dr. Leavitt is a sought after consultant to the pharmaceutical industry and has served as an advisor for Roche/Genentech, Takeda, Novartis, Teva, uniQure, Triplet, PTC, Raptor, Mitoconix, Ionis, and many others over the last 20 years. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of sRNAlytics and is Co-founder, CEO, and the Chairman of the Board of Incisive Genetics Inc.

Kevin Chow has over 25 years of experience leading business development and corporate strategy in both large and small biopharmaceutical companies. Dr. Chow was Co-founder, President and CEO of Vitaeris (acquired by CSL Behring in June 2020), a privately held biotechnology company conducting a multi-national Phase 3 study in kidney transplant rejection. Under Dr. Chow’s leadership, Vitaeris repurposed the anti-IL6 mAb clazakizumab from rheumatoid arthritis into the field of solid organ transplantation under an unprecedented FDA Subpart E accelerated approval pathway in the field of transplant. Prior to co-founding Vitaeris, Dr. Chow served as Head of Business Development at Alder Biopharmaceuticals where he led partnering efforts for Alder’s monoclonal antibody pipeline. Previously, Dr. Chow led pulmonary in-licensing at Gilead Sciences and also helped manage the integration of Corus Pharma after its acquisition by Gilead in 2006. Prior to Gilead, Dr. Chow served as Director of Business Development for Corus Pharma, a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on cystic fibrosis and asthma drug development. From 2000-2003 he served in various business development roles with Diversa Corporation.

Dr. Chow holds B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. 

Dr. Hayden is a Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia, the highest honour UBC can confer on any faculty member. He is also an accomplished scientist and physician. He was the President of Global R&D and Chief Scientific Officer at Teva from 2012-2017. During this time approximately 35 new products were approved in major markets with many for diseases of the CNS. In 2015 Teva R&D was recognized as one of the 10 most exciting innovators in Pharma by IDEA Pharma and in 2017 Teva R&D ranked top of the industry for CNS development and clinical trial success rate by Pharma Intelligence. He is also a Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Hayden was named one of the 50 Canadians born in the 20th century who have changed the world. Dr. Hayden is the co-founder of five biotechnology companies including: Prilenia, NeuroVir Therapeutics Inc., Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Aspreva Pharmaceuticals Corp and 89bio. He currently sits on different public and private boards of biotechnologies companies.

Author of approximately 900 peer-reviewed publications and invited submissions, Dr. Hayden has focused his research primarily on translational medicine, including genetics of diabetes, lipoprotein disorders, Huntington disease, predictive, personalized medicine and drug development. Dr. Hayden and his research group have identified 10 disease-causing genes which includes the identification of the major gene underlying high-density lipoprotein (HDL) in humans. Dr. Hayden also identified the first mutations underlying Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL) Deficiency and developed gene therapy approaches to treat this condition resulting in the first approved gene therapy product (Glybera) in a major market. Dr. Hayden is the most cited author in the world on ABCA1, and Huntington Disease.

Dr. Hayden is the recipient of numerous prestigious honours and awards. He was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2017. He was named one of PharmaVoice’s “100 of the Most Inspiring People” (2015); awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Alberta (2009) and by the University of Gottingen (2014); the Luminary award by the Personalized Medicine World Conference (2014); the Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012), on behalf of HRH Queen Elisabeth II, in recognition of his significant contributions and achievements; the Margolese National Brain Disorder Prize (2011), awarded to Canadians who have made outstanding contributions to the treatment, amelioration, or cure of brain diseases; the Killam Prize by the Canada Council of the Arts (2011), in recognition of his outstanding career achievements; and the Canada Gairdner Wightman award (2011), recognizing him as a physician-scientist who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in medicine and medical science. Dr. Hayden has also been awarded the Order of Canada (2011), and the Order of British Columbia (2010). He was named Canada’s Health Researcher of the Year by CIHR (NIH of Canada) in 2008, and he received the Prix Galien in 2007, which recognizes the outstanding contribution of a researcher to Canadian pharmaceutical research.

Dr. Hayden is committed to empowering others. In addition to mentoring over 100 graduate students and postdocs, he is also a TED mentor.

Leslie M. Thompson, PhD, is a Donald Bren and Chancellor’s Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California Irvine. Dr. Thompson has studied Huntington’s disease (HD) for most of her scientific career and was a member of the international consortium that identified the causative gene for HD in 1993. She also co-identified the mutation causing achondroplasia, the most common genetic form of short-limbed dwarfism in 1994. Since that time, the Thompson laboratory has been actively engaged in investigating the fundamental molecular and cellular events that underlie how the mutant HD gene causes degeneration of specific brain cell populations to induce motor and cognitive decline and premature death of patients with the ultimate goal to develop new therapeutic approaches, including stem-cell based treatments. The laboratory also focuses on understanding causal mechanisms that underlie HD and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and more recently X-linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism with the goal of developing treatments for the disease.  The research benefits from the integrated use of patient iPSCs and mouse models of disease together with the studies of RNA biology, protein homeostasis and network-based bioinformatics. Dr. Thompson is a member of the Hereditary Disease Foundation Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), HD CARE SAB, Packard Center SAB, Chair of the Huntington’s Disease Society of America SAB and is founding Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Huntington’s Disease. 

She is co-director of the Center for Precision Health and Precision Health through Artificial Intelligence at UCI, which seeks to improve health and advance treatments through AI and data driven technologies.

Dr. David Weiner is a neurologist and neuropharmacologist with over 20 years of experience in the discovery and development of novel therapeutics for neurological disease. He started his career at ACADIA Pharmaceuticals, where, over a ten-year period, he held a series of discovery research and clinical development roles working on multiple therapeutics, most notably Pimavanserin. He subsequently joined EMD Serono in a late clinical development role, ultimately leading early clinical development activities in neurology globally. Dave has extensive experience in neurological and rare disease drug development, serving as CMO and Interim CEO for Proteostasis Therapeutics Inc., CMO at aTYR Pharma and Lumos Pharmaceuticals, and as CEO at Amathus Therapeutics.

Dave received his M.D. from the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, SUNY at Buffalo, and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Scholar at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda. He trained in clinical neurology at New York Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Cornell Medical Center, and did a post-doctoral fellowship in Neuropharmacology at the University of Vermont. His clinical experiences have included patient care and clinical teaching responsibilities at both the University of Vermont, and the University of California, San Diego.  He has authored over 30 scientific publications, multiple patents, and serves on a number of clinical and scientific advisory boards, including the scientific advisory board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson Research.