Board of Directors

Committed. Talented. Experienced.

CPDC is governed by an independent Board of Directors. Board members represent all key sectors associated with the CPDC.  The Board of Directors works with the CEO and CPDC executive team to shape the CPDC’s future direction and success.

John Thornback

Chair of the CPDC Board of Directors

Michael Israels

Chief Financial Officer of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, interim CFO at OmniaBio Inc

Lana Janes

Cofounder, Chief Operating Officer,  Abdera Therapeutics

Damian Lamb

Managing Director,
Genesys Capital

Thorsten Melcher

Senior Vice President, Global Business Development & Alliance Management for Telix Pharmaceuticals

Peter Pattison

President, Interventional Oncology, Boston Scientific

Sheila Singh

Pediatric Neurosurgeon,
McMaster Children’s Hospital

Annick Van den Abbeele

Founding Director,
Center for Biomedical Imaging in Oncology (CBIO),
 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

We are radiopharmaceutical specialists

Meet our Leadership Team

Dr. John Thornback

Board Chair

Dr. John Thornback has been with the Centre of Probe Development and Commercialisation for over 15 years and is now Chair. He graduated with 1st Class Honours in Chemistry from Imperial College London and earned a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry under Nobel Laureate Prof. Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson. He held academic posts at the University of London and Loughborough University before joining Medgenix SA in Belgium as Head of Radiopharmaceutical R&D.

With 35 years in the diagnostic industry, including CEO roles in Canada, the UK, and Singapore, he has raised startup funding and transformed public research centers into successful private enterprises. He has built senior management teams across North America, Europe, and Asia, and managed companies through exits, including trade sales and JVs. He has also negotiated key commercial partnerships and technology licensing deals.

Since 2004, he has been a Non-Executive Director of commercial and government enterprises and a member of Scientific Advisory Boards. Based in SE Asia for nearly 10 years, he has held leadership roles at Dx Assays Ltd, Apta Biosciences Pte Ltd, and Diagnostics Development Hub. During the COVID crisis, he oversaw QA and Biosafety at Stronghold Laboratories. He has published over 100 scientific articles, holds more than 20 patents, and co-authored a book.

Michael Israels

Chief Financial Officer of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, interim CFO at OmniaBio Inc

Michael Israels is the Chief Financial Officer of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM) and interim CFO at OmniaBio Inc. Prior to joining CCRM, Michael was a Management Consultant at Ernst & Young LLP, President of BEST Funds, a Toronto-based venture capital firm, and CEO Of Convexus Managed Services Inc., a start-up investment fund administration company.

As CFO, Michael is responsible for overseeing finance, administrative, facility & IT activities, the creation and support of start-up regenerative medicine/cell and gene therapy companies, risk management activities, sourcing of risk capital, corporate development supporting CCRM’s growth strategy, and development of investment funding vehicles for CCRM and its global hubs around the world. 

Michael is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and Chartered Accountant (CA, Ontario), a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV), and a graduate of the Ivey Business School at Western University. 

Lana Janes

Cofounder, Chief Operating Officer Abdera Therapeutics

Lana Janes is Chief Operating Officer at Abdera Therapeutics and has more than 20 years of public and private company management and operations experience that spans the full life cycle of therapeutic product development.

Lana is a co-founder of Abdera Therapeutics, having led the incubation and spin-out of the company from adMare Bioinnovations where she was a venture partner. Prior to that, Lana served as chief patent officer of QLT Inc. where, for 12 years, she was responsible for all aspects of global intellectual property and strategic life cycle management for FDA-approved products Visudyne®, Aczone® and Eligard®, as well as numerous preclinical and clinical-stage pharmaceutical products across multiple therapeutic areas. She also served as SVP of Technology Development in her later years at QLT, where she led the R&D organization and oversaw clinical development of the company’s late-stage ophthalmology assets.

Prior to that, Lana worked as a registered Canadian and U.S. patent agent in the Toronto office of Ogilvy Renault LLP (now Norton Rose Fulbright) and at F. Hoffman-La Roche in Basel, Switzerland, where her practice focused on strategic IP protection for numerous therapeutic and medical device franchises.

In addition to being a CPDC board member, Lana also sits on the board of Life Sciences British Columbia.

Damian Lamb

Managing Director, Genesys Capital

Damian Lamb is co-Founder and Managing Director of Genesys Capital. With over 20 years experience in life sciences venture capital, he is one of Canada’s most experienced investors and company builders. Since co-founding Genesys Capital in 2000, Mr. Lamb has been instrumental in raising over $300 million in venture capital funds and has been involved in deploying over $250 million across 38 investments. He currently serves on the Boards of Flosonics Medical and the Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization at McMaster University.

Mr. Lamb has served on the Board of Affinium Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Debiopharm), Ionalytics Corporation (acquired by Thermo Electron Corp.), Millenium Biologix (acquired by Medtronic) and was Chairman of the Board of Fusion Pharmaceuticals Inc., Profound Medical Corp. and DELEX Therapeutics Inc. when it was sold to YM BioSciences (now Gilead). Mr. Lamb works closely with Genesys investee companies to strategically position the companies to build value for shareholders.

Prior to co-founding Genesys Capital, Mr. Lamb was an Investment Manager with MDS Capital Corp. He is a frequently invited speaker at biotechnology industry conferences. Mr. Lamb graduated from McMaster University, Faculty of Health Sciences, with a Master of Science in Molecular Neurobiology and holds an MBA from Queen’s University.

Thorsten Melcher, PhD

Senior Vice President, Global Business Development & Alliance Management for Telix Pharmaceuticals

Thorsten Melcher, Ph.D. is Senior Vice President, Global Business Development & Alliance Management for Telix Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of therapeutic and diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals and associated medical technologies. At Telix, he leads a global team responsible for all in-/out-licensing, acquisition and strategic partnership initiatives across Telix’ business units, and on managing Telix’ portfolio of partnerships.

Previously, Thorsten served as Chief Business Officer at RefleXion Medical, a radiation oncology company developing and commercializing PET-guided external-beam radiotherapy technology, and at Xyphos, a cell therapy company. Earlier in his career, he was at Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JJI), where he concentrated on partnering for Janssen Oncology and Janssen Neuroscience and facilitated new company formation.  Before joining JJI, he was at Varian Medical Systems leading its biomedical programs, including establishment of a spin-out company to integrate radiotherapy with targeted cancer therapeutics. He also was co-founder of AGY Therapeutics and EnVivo Pharmaceuticals, companies pioneering novel technologies in neuroscience. 

Born in Germany, Thorsten earned his M.Sc. equivalent degree from the University of Hannover, and a Ph.D. equivalent degree from the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH) in Heidelberg. Subsequently, he conducted postdoctoral research at ZMBH and the University of California, San Francisco.

Peter Pattison

President, Interventional Oncology & Embolization, Peripheral Interventions, Boston Scientific

Peter Pattison joined Boston Scientific through the BTG acquisition where he was head of their Interventional Oncology business. He joined BTG in July 2013 following their acquisition of TheraSphere® from Nordion Inc.

At Nordion, Peter held a series of senior commercial roles including Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development for the company’s Targeted Therapies division that included TheraSphere®.

Prior to working at Nordion, Peter served as General Manager for the Asian/American Discovery Pharmacology business unit at MDS Pharma Services, a global Contract Research Organization. Peter started his career at Roche in Switzerland.

Dr. Sheila Singh

Pediatric Neurosurgeon, McMaster Children’s Hospital

Dr. Sheila Singh is a Professor in the Department of Surgery and Biochemistry at McMaster University. She is the Director of the Surgeon-Scientist Program, Director of the Pediatric Brain Tumour Study Group, and the Director of the Centre for Discovery in Cancer Research (CDCR). She holds a Canada Research Chair in Human Cancer Stem Cell Biology. Dr. Singh received her M.D. from McMaster University. Her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, and her Doctorate of Neurosurgery are from the University of Toronto. Her Ph.D. thesis described the novel identification of a population of cancer stem cells that drive the formation of brain tumours.

As a scientist and a pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Singh is especially aware of the needs of patients and clinicians dealing with brain diseases. Thus, her current research is dedicated to applying a developmental neurobiology approach to the study of brain cancer.

Dr. Annick D. Van den Abbeele

Founding Director, Center for Biomedical Imaging in Oncology (CBIO), Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Annick D. Van den Abbeele, MD, FACR, FICIS is Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School; Chair Emerita Department of Imaging, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI); and Chief Emerita of the Division of Cancer Imaging, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). 

She designed and founded an integrated bi-directional preclinical and clinical translational cancer imaging research program (DFCI Center for Biomedical Imaging in Oncology), a dedicated cancer research cyclotron facility (DFCI Molecular Cancer Imaging Facility), and co-founded and co-directs an NCI-sponsored Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center Tumor Imaging Metrics Core now established at 12 National Cancer Center Network sites in the USA and other institutions which helped establish molecularly targeted therapies, immunotherapies, and theranostics as new paradigms in the treatment of patients with cancer, for which she is nationally and internationally known.

She fosters academic, industrial, and governmental collaborative efforts on a global level to maximize the translation of discovery in the most timely, cost-effective and efficient way, and offer significant synergies and partnerships across borders for the benefit of patients with cancer. She also served as the 2021-2022 President of the International Cancer Imaging Society, and the co-Editor-in-Chief of Cancer Imaging (2016-2024).