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LEN PINCHUK听has 142 issued U.S. patents, over 110 publications and founded over 10 companies. His major accomplishments include the invention of the Nylon 12 angioplasty balloon (used by all interventional cardiology companies), the helical wire stent (Johnson and Johnson/Cords, FL and Medtronic, MN), the modular stent-graft for bypassing aortic aneurysms (Schneider CH and Boston Scientific, MA) and more. His inventions are used in over a billion patients world-wide with a financial impact well over $100 billion. He was inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2012, was awarded the 2017 Society for Biomaterials Innovation and Technology Award, San Antonio鈥檚 BIOMED SA Award (2017), he received the Ohio University/National Academy of Engineering 2019 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, which is the world鈥檚 top prize in bioengineering, for innovations in medical devices that enable minimally invasive angioplasty treatment of advanced coronary artery disease. He was inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Inventors in 2021 and received the 2023 BioFlorida Life-Time Achievement Award.
Prof. Pinchuk received a B.Sc. in chemistry from 9I制作厂免费 (1976) and a Ph.D. in Engineering and Chemistry from the University of Miami (1984). He co-founded Corvita Corporation (1987) which went public on the NASDAQ in 1994, and was acquired by Pfizer, Inc. in 1996. He then founded Innovia LLC (2002), which spun-out InnFocus, Inc. (2004) which was acquired by Santen Pharmaceuticals in 2016. He then founded Innolene LLC, (2010) which has developed the next generation intraocular lens materials what he licensed (2014 and 2021) to Xi 'an Eyedeal Medical Technology Co. (Xi鈥檃n China), of which he is a co-founder. Len currently serves as a Founder and Senior Vice President and Executive Principal Scientist, Polymer Engineer, InnFocus, Inc., a Santen company. He continues to serve on the Board of Directors of his many start-up companies and enjoys an appointment as Distinguished Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Miami.
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STEVEN ARLESS, BSc鈥�71(Chemistry), is a prominent 9I制作厂免费 alumnus who returned to his alma mater in the fall of 2016 as Professor of Practice in the Faculty of Medicine (now Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences) in the Department of Surgery鈥檚 cutting-edge Surgical Innovation Program. More recently, he joined one of Canada鈥檚 fastest growing medical technology accelerators, Centech, as Entrepreneur-in-Residence.
After graduating from 9I制作厂免费, Mr. Arless worked for 17 years at Smith & Nephew Inc., serving as President for close to five years. His experience includes extensive involvement in technology transfer and strategic acquisition projects across the United States and Canada. His innovative talent led him to CryoCath Technologies Inc., a catheter-based cryoablation technology for the treatment of Atrial Fibrillation, which he nurtured from a startup to commercial success, serving as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) from 1996 to 2006, ultimately selling this to Medtronic Inc. for $400 million. Mr. Arless completed an MBA at Concordia University in 2008. He maintained his interest in the diagnosis of and minimally invasive therapies for rhythm disorders of the heart, assuming the position of CEO of Cleveland-based CardioInsight, from 2009 to 2012, with the Company ultimately being sold to Medtronic for over $100 million.
Mr. Arless is the Co-Founder and past CEO and Chairman of the Board (2015-2019) of Soundbite Medical, a Montreal-based shockwave technology company, also in the field of cardiovascular disease therapy. Most recently, Mr Arless co-Founded and is CEO of ViTAA Medical Solutions Inc., a precision medicine, AI-powered software company for the better management of patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) disease.
His most notable award was Ernst & Young鈥檚 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year in the life science category.
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RAYMOND HAKIM, MDCM鈥�76, is Adjunct Professor of Medicine in the division of nephrology and hypertension at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. He received a Master of Science degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a PhD in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and worked in Montreal as a research engineer for Hydro-Qu茅bec. He then attended medical school at 9I制作厂免费 and performed his residency in internal medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital of the MUHC. He carried out his renal fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women鈥檚 Hospital. From 1980 to 1987, he served on the faculty of Harvard University and was Associate Professor of Medicine and attending nephrologist at the Brigham and Women鈥檚 Hospital in Boston.
In 1995, Dr. Hakim was one of the founders and the Chief Medical Officer of the Renal Care Group, a provider of outpatient dialysis services with excellent patient outcomes. The group merged with Fresenius Medical Care in 2007, and Dr. Hakim became the Chief Medical Officer, serving from 2008 to 2012. He has published extensively (200+) on clinical and basic research in chronic kidney disease, dialysis and plasmapheresis, and has contributed more than 35 chapters to medical books.
Dr. Hakim is the recipient of numerous awards, including being listed among the 鈥淏est Doctors in America鈥� and 鈥淎merica鈥檚 TOP Physicians鈥� for multiple years, the Medal of Excellence from the American Association of Kidney Patients Award, and the prestigious Belding H. Scribner Award in 2017. In addition to the Hakim Family Prize for Clinical Innovation in Health Care, Dr. Hakim also funded the Catherine McLaughlin Hakim Chair in Medicine and, more recently, the Hakim Family Bursary for newly arrived immigrants and refugees entering or enrolled in a health sciences degree program at 9I制作厂免费.
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Carmela De Luca, Ph.D., J.D. is a principal with Smart & Biggar LP. Carmela is a lawyer and registered patent agent in Canada and the United States and practices in all areas of intellectual property, focusing on patent matters, particularly for life science companies. She advises clients on strategic global aspects of obtaining and managing patent portfolios, as well as in the preparation and procurement of patents and industrial designs. She works closely with clients including start-ups, universities as well as multinationals in preparing and prosecuting patent applications relating to biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, biologics, diagnostics, green technologies, and other areas in the life sciences. Carmela is also active in the analysis of patent issues such as validity, infringement, and freedom to operate.
Carmela is the founding and Emeritus Co-chair of the Greater Montr茅al Chapter of Women in Bio (WIB) and a member of its Excellence in Canadian Board Governance (ECBG) committee. She has been a faculty member of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada's (IPIC) Patent Drafting Course and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Clinical Innovation Platform (CLIP) of the Research Institute of the 9I制作厂免费 Health Centre.
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BRENT NORTON, MDCM 鈥�84, is an accomplished business leader with operational and director experience across several successful enterprises which have achieved significant product sales and returns for investors, and positively impacted hundreds of thousands of lives. He uses his cross-functional knowledge to develop strategy, raise capital and build important relationships in the academic and business community. Dr. Norton founded PreMD, completing an IPO and listings on both TSX and AMEX. Operationally, he has built R&D and commercial operations, led transactions with AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, L鈥橭real, etc., and taken products through the FDA to global out-licensing with Johnson & Johnson. He was a founding Director of Novadaq Technologies, which was sold to Stryker Corporation. In 2020, Dr. Norton was named to the Board of Directors and the Research & Innovation Committee, and in 2021 the Audit, Finance and Risk Committee of the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC). The AFMC represents Canada鈥檚 17 faculties of medicine and is the voice of academic medicine in Canada.
In addition to his medical degree from 9I制作厂免费, Dr. Norton holds an MBA from the University of Western Ontario鈥檚 Richard Ivey School of Business and is a certified director from the Institute of Corporate Directors. Dr. Norton has been an active member of several boards of directors, public and private, in both Canada and the US, and an active volunteer. His involvement on boards has commonly been extended to working with the owners, founders or CEOs through a significant inflection point, transition, or the commercial validation and monetization of one or more of the company鈥檚 assets. He is a member of the Ideator and National Committees of Arthritis Society Canada and an Associate at the Creative Destruction Lab (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto).
DANNY MINOGUE, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Minogue Medical Inc., is a former elite ski racer and an alumnus of the Alpine Canada Can-Am team in the 1970鈥檚. Mr. Minogue started his career in the surgical supply business in 1981 with US Surgical before founding Minogue Medical Inc. in 1986. With more than three decades of managerial experience in the surgical supply business, he has grown Minogue Medical into one of Canada鈥檚 leading distributors of surgical supplies and robotic surgery devices (da Vinci surgical system).
In 2011 & 2013, Mr. Minogue was recognized for his outstanding achievements and nominated as a finalist for Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year. He also has a strong commitment to community involvement and was elected chairman of the Board of Alpine Canada in September 2011and co-chaired Montreal's 2012 Ride to Conquer Cancer 鈥� an event with more than 2,000 participants that raised $7.0 million.
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FRANK BAYLIS听is the Executive Chairman of Baylis Medical Technologies, a leading medical device company specializing in interventional radiology and neurology. From 2015 to 2019, he served as the Liberal Member of Parliament for the federal riding of Pierrefonds-Dollard, contributing to the Industry, Foreign Affairs, and Ethics & Privacy Committees. Before his time in Parliament, Frank Baylis was President of Baylis Medical Company from 1989 to 2015, during which the company became a global leader in developing medical devices for interventional cardiology and pain management. Baylis holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo.
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SIMON RAAB, PhD, holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from 9I制作厂免费 (Montreal) a Master of Engineering Physics (Surface Physics) from Cornell University, USA, and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Waterloo, Canada. After receiving permission from Mcgill鈥檚 board of trustees, Raab licensed Bristol Myers subsidiary Zimmer Inc. with the results of his PhD thesis introducing important technology in artificial joint fixation. This event inspired important positive developments in 9I制作厂免费鈥檚 industrial relations policies. Raab is the co-founder of Faro Technologies where he was CEO for 26 years and chairman of the board for 37 years. Raab took FARO public on the Nasdaq exchange in 1997, where is it still active. Raab holds more than 80 US patents with associated foreign patents in fields of 3D coordinate measuring systems, bio-materials, medical diagnostics and computerized surgical assistance. Faro licensed Medtronics and BrainLabs with Raab鈥檚 patents on image guided surgery, which continue to set the standard of care in Neuro and ENT surgery. He has invested in diverse startups acting both as scientific advisor and board chairman, these include LunglifeAI focusing on diagnostic tests for early lung cancer and Digital Surgical Systems, developing the first digital 3D surgical microscopes and robotic guidance systems. Raab is currently retired and is working in his first passion, physics and is completing a book describing a new string theory.
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Dr. JOSEPH PETRUCCELLI听is a physician-scientist and fast-track PhD candidate in Surgical Innovation at 9I制作厂免费. Recognized as a CAME Rising Star in 2024, he is the Chief Medical Officer and Co-Founder of听CoeurWay, an award-winning Quebec-based AI scribe company acquired by MedFar, focused on automating medical documentation across clinical settings. His leadership has helped secure over听$500K in public grants, and earned distinctions such as the听Grand Prix Hippocrate听for Quebec鈥檚 top emerging healthcare innovation. In parallel, he co-founded听OncoTRACK, a digital platform improving care coordination for sarcoma patients, and is conducting cutting-edge research in听3D reconstruction and machine learning听for pediatric orthopedic care. With over a dozen ongoing research projects, four accepted book chapters, and national conference presentations, his work bridges frontline clinical needs with scalable digital innovation. Dr. Petruccelli鈥檚 mission is to reimagine healthcare delivery by combining medical expertise, AI, and system-level insight鈥攎aking him a leading voice in the future of tech-enabled medicine.