PLANTFORM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Member of the Senior Management Team
David Cayea is an entrepreneur who has successfully launched private-sector companies in multiple industries over the last 14 years. He has extensive business management experience in Europe, Asia and North America, including founding North American Safety Consultants in Abu Dhabi in 2003.
Mr. Cayea has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies and Politics from Brock University and a Post Diploma Certification in Environmental Management from Niagara College.
Dr. Chris Hall is a world expert in the science of plant-based pharmaceutical production. He is a University Professor Emeritus in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph and a former Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Recombinant Antibody Technology (2002-2014).
His laboratory has more than 150 papers in refereed journals.
Dr. Hall first recognized the manufacturing and regulatory advantages of using tobacco plants to produce antibody drugs in the early 1990s. His technology overcomes a number of issues associated with animal-derived antibody production: it allows for higher yields, lowers costs and eliminates animal welfare concerns.
Dr. Hall co-founded PlantForm in 2008 and served as the company's Chief Scientific Officer and a member of the Board of Directors from 2008 to 2020.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Senior Management Team
- President
- President and Chief Executive Officer, PlantForm Founder
Dr. Don Stewart is an entrepreneur and scientist with more than 20 years of management experience in the biotechnology industry. He is also the founder and President of Alba Biologics Group.
Dr. Stewart served as Director Research of Cangene Corporation from 1997 to 2007. At Cangene, he led programs to develop monoclonal antibodies and recombinant protein drugs; supervised animal efficacy and toxicology studies as well as clinical trial programs; and obtained more than $15 million in external grant and contract funding over a five-year period.
Dr. Stewart has a PhD in biochemistry from the University of London in the U.K. He has given numerous lectures at international symposia on research management, manufacturing strategies and biosimilar pharmaceuticals.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Member of the Senior Management Team
- Vice - President, Research
- Vice - President, Research, PlantForm Corp. ( Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board )
Dr. Doug Cossar is a biotech industry veteran with 30 years of management and research experience.
Prior to joining PlantForm as Vice-President, Research, Dr. Cossar was research manager, biotechnology, at Croda Europe Ltd. He has served as principal investigator, biotechnology, for the Structural Genomics Consortium and in senior positions at Canadian biotech company Cangene and the Public Health Laboratory Service in the U.K.
Dr. Cossar has a PhD in Microbiology from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. His expertise spans protein expression and analysis, GMP manufacturing for biopharmaceuticals, process validation, natural product manufacturing, as well as research in microalgae and fungal biochemistry/physiology, protein structural biology and synthentic biology.
Dr. Cossar is chair of PlantForm's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Co - Founder & Former CEO, GlobalTox
- Dir., PlantForm Founder
Dr. Mark Goldberg is an entrepreneur with a wealth of experience in drug research and as a regulatory consultant.
He served as President and CEO of GlobalTox, a privately owned international corporation that he founded in 1992 to provide services in product testing and registration, human and environmental toxicology, and risk assessment. GlobalTox was purchased by MTE Consultants Inc. in 2009.
Dr. Goldberg received a B.Sc. in biology from the University of Western Ontario in 1974 and a PhD in pharmacology from the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University in 1980. He did his postdoctoral work in biochemical and genetic toxicology at the Ontario Cancer Institute.
He joined the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the Ontario Veterinary College of the University of Guelph in 1982, and was a tenured faculty member until 1994. He was awarded the University of Guelph's Forster Fellowship, given annually to the university's top researcher in 1987. Dr. Goldberg is the author of more than 50 scientific publications, primarily in the cancer research field.
Dr. Goldberg is board-certified by the American Board of Toxicology, one of only 68 board-certified toxicologists working in Canada. He has also received the Chartered Directors (C.Dir.) designation from The Directors College.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- President, Roker Biotechnologies
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- President, Crookedholm Partners Inc.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Chartered Accountant
- Chief Financial Officer
- Member of the Senior Management Team
- Chief Financial Officer, PlantForm Founder, Interim Chair of PlantForm 's Board of Directors
Mr. Ron Hosking is a chartered accountant with three decades of experience as a financial manager in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.
From 1997 to 2008, Mr. Hosking was Vice-President Finance & Chief Financial Officer for PreMD Inc., a developer of point-of-care medical devices. He guided the company through seven public financings and onto the TSX (2000) and AMEX (2002) stock exchanges. He also helped negotiate out-licensing partnerships with McNeil Consumer Healthcare and AstraZeneca.
Mr. Hosking has also served as:
Vice-President Finance & CFO, LifeTECH Corporation
General Manager & CFO, Biomira Diagnostics Inc.
Director of Marketing & Finance, Ortho Diagnostic Systems Inc. (Johnson & Johnson)
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- CEO, President and Chief Scientific Officer, CTT Pharma
Job Titles:
- Director of Communications
- for Media Inquiries, Please Contact
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Director of the Familial Breast Cancer Research Unit, Women 's College Research Institute, Toronto
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Guelph Research Chair, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Guelph
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Department of Immunology
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board
- Chairman, Department of Chemistry and Biology, Ryerson University
Job Titles:
- Certified Management Accountant
Warren Whitehead is a Certified Management Accountant who has held several senior financial management positions with pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. He is the former CFO of Arius Research Inc., an anti-cancer antibody company (acquired by Roche in 2008), and former CFO of Labopharm Inc. (2000 to 2006) where he led several rounds of financing, including a cross-border NASDAQ offering. Prior positions include CFO of Resolution Pharmaceuticals Inc. and finance and business development at Glaxo Canada (now GlaxoSmithKline).
Mr. Whitehead holds an MBA from the University of Windsor.