Experienced Leadership
Rocky Ganske |
Dr. John Mackey, MD. |
Dr. Parsin Haji Reza, PhD. |
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President & CEO |
Chief Medical Officer |
Founder & CTO |
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Mr. Ganske brings over 3 decades of both public and private company experience in the medical devices, diagnostics, and life science fields, and has a broad background in management, operations, science and regulatory; blended with the disciplines of corporate processes, and successful entrepreneurial business ventures. Mr. Ganske has personally led multiple business and IP transactions with both Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies. He led CellAegis Devices Inc. as the CEO for the last 10 years transitioned the technology out of Sick Kids Hospital, Toronto into a commercial product with CE Mark and Health Canada approval used in several multinational controlled trials, in cardiovascular, stroke, and kidney reperfusion damage. Prior to CDI, Mr. Ganske served as CEO of Axela, a university diagnostics startup focused on real-time proteomic analysis utilizing proprietary diffractive optics technology. Mr. Ganske transitioned Axela to a full operating company, installing Axela’s commercial platform in premier institutes in the US, EU and Asia Pacific. Mr. Ganske was instrumental in negotiating and closing significant patent in-licensing transaction with Fortune 100 companies for over 150 patents and applications and oversaw Axela’s acquisition of Xceed Molecular, a genomics diagnostic company.
Contact: rocky@illumisonics.com |
Dr. Mackey is a medical oncologist and Director of Clinical Trials Unit at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, Canada, and a Professor of Oncology at the University of Alberta. In addition to acting as director and lead clinical advisor to illumiSonics, Dr Mackey brings deep medtech commercialization experience. He co-founded Pacylex Pharmaceuticals, J2 Endeavours, and SMHeartCard Inc. As Chair of the Alberta Pre-Phase I Program steering committee, he has a highly skilled team committed to bringing new anticancer therapies into clinical testing (www.prephaseone.com). Dr. Mackey has authored or co-authored more than 300 biomedical peer reviewed publications.
Contact: john.mackey@illumisonics.com |
Dr. Reza discovered and pioneered the PARS® imaging techniques. In November 2014, he co-founded illumiSonics inc., holding the position of CEO from November 2014 to March 2018. Dr. Reza is an award winning professor at the University of Waterloo and leads a team of technical experts at PhotoMedicine Labs. He brings more than 10 years experience in optics and biomedical engineering, and continues to advance the validation of PARS® through these efforts. He currently has 35+ peer reviewed journal papers in optics and biomedical Engineering. He also holds 7 family of patents regarding PARS® technology. Dr. Reza has been recognized for his innovative scientific contributions to advancing the state of optical imaging.
Contact: parsin@illumisonics.com https://www.photomedicinelabs.com/ |
Experienced Management
Anne Raghurai |
Alexis Motuz |
Vladimir Pekar |
Interim CFO |
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Prior to joining illumiSonics, Anne, a CPA, and through her accounting practice of 23 years, worked with small to mid-sized companies in various industries assisting in growth positioning, funding and operations. In addition, she provides CFO services to larger firms as a spinoff from her days of employment with a number of companies in the private and public sectors.
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Alexis Motuz is a technical writer with an interdisciplinary background (arts, sciences, and fine arts with a specialization in creative writing; BASc, MA); she is currently completing her SSHRC-funded PhD in English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has worked for nearly 15 years in post-secondary institutions across Southern Ontario supporting faculty, students, and staff as they work to improve their research and writing & multimodal communication skills. She has worked with students at all levels (undergraduate, graduate) and with a range of abilities to guide them as they craft award-winning scholarship and successful professional school applications. She has edited and developed successful grant applications for federal, provincial, municipal, and non-profit funding agencies, and very much enjoyed learning about, translating, and presenting cutting-edge innovations in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and fine arts disciplines to both expert and more general audiences.
Contact: alexis@illumisonics.com |
Vladimir Pekar received a Diploma in Computer Science from Taganrog Radio Engineering Institute in Russia and a PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of Hamburg, Germany. He started his career at Philips Research in Hamburg, working on medical analysis applications, and subsequently held different positions at Philips in Germany and Canada, where he managed academic research collaborations until 2018. Vladimir is joining the team from Perimeter Medical Imaging AI, where as AI Lead he played a pivotal role in development of its proprietary AI technology for OCT image analysis.
Contact: vlad@illumisonics.com |