ELIZABETH DOUVILLE, Ph.D., ICD.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer, IRICoR
T + 514 343.6111 #0315
C +
elizabeth.douville.1@umontreal.ca
Biography :
Dr. Elizabeth Douville is President and CEO of IRICoR, a Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research in Drug Discovery based at IRIC/University of Montreal. IRICoR is a pan-Canadian leader in de-risking and mitigating early-stage academic assets in the field of drug discovery. Projects in the growing portfolio benefit from IRICoR’s funding and turnkey support. As a result, they are partnered more quickly with the private sector to bring innovative therapeutic solutions to market in cancer and related fields.
Prior to this role, Elizabeth was the Founder and Managing Partner of AmorChem, a leading early-stage venture capital fund focusing on academic innovation and translating it into early-stage biotech companies. As a founder of the fund, she has been instrumental in elaborating the innovative early-stage investment model of AmorChem, in fundraising $90M over two funds, as well as in setting up and supervising the funds’ operations and governance model. Her deep ties into the academic world coupled to her strategic input and vision have been critical in the success of the funds. She sourced, led and oversaw the investments in a dozen of the funds’ promising university technologies and, successfully created several spin-off companies that have raised capital or partnered with pharmaceutical companies.
Elizabeth began her venture capital career by joining the GeneChem family of funds in 1997, quickly rising from Manager to Senior Partner, raising $200M over two of the funds and leading several investments in Canada and the US.
Elizabeth’s reputation as a very committed and active participant in the life sciences ecosystem has led her to sit on the boards of directors of several portfolio companies and not for profit organizations. In addition to currently serving as a Board member of Corbin Therapeutics and Semathera, she has been a Board Member of Genome Canada since 2016 and has been serving as Chair of the Board since 2019. She is also a member of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation since 2015. She is currently vice chair of the Emerging Company Advisory Board of BIOTECanada and a member of the Policy Engagement Committee of Research Canada. In the past, she worked extensively on the boards of BioQuébec, the provincial industry organisation, and BioCanRx, a Canadian Centre of Excellence for biotherapeutics in cancer.
She obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Ottawa and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, UK. She obtained a Certificate in Management from CIREM/University of Montreal and a Certificate in Leadership and Leadership Abilities from the Leadership Institute and participated in the prestigious GP Academy offered by the Business Development Bank of Canada. In January of 2023, she successfully completed the ICD-Rotman Directors Education program and obtained the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.