The ARC Medical Team

Dr. Chris Springate has over 25 years of experience as a leader in the development of medical devices, combination products and drugs at preclinical and early clinical stage medical device companies. He engaged in the development of several successful products including the Taxus® Stent with sales of greater than USD 1 billion annually; built leadership teams including corporate, scientific and clinical boards; co-led ARC in acquiring greater than USD 30 million of equity and licensing financing; and is an inventor of several patent families that protect ARC’s products. Dr. Springate served as a hospital and community pharmacist for 7 years. He holds BSc (Pharm) and PhD (Pharm) degrees and is a Registered Pharmacist.

Dr Robert Litchfield is a fellow of orthopaedic surgery with 30 years’ experience. He is the current Medical Director at the Fowler Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic, as well he is professor of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Western Ontario. He is an active member of American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, and the Arthroscopy Association of North America, as well as several additional professional societies. He was an investigator or collaborator on more than 50 research initiatives, and is the recipient of multiple honours and awards including the McLachlan Chair awarded by the Department of Surgery to individuals who are master educators and whose academic thrust is in the advancement of surgical learning. Dr Litchfield was principal author or co-author on more than 60 peer reviewed articles and book chapters.

Michael Liggett brings over 30 years of experience in health care and finance. His background includes over 25 years as a CFO for private and dual listed NASDAQ/TSX companies (including 12 years as CFO of Inflazyme Pharmaceuticals) with strategic and operational expertise and proven success in finance, M&A, strategic partnerships and risk management, completing over $500 million in financing and M&A.  Michael earned his chartered accountant’s designation while working at Price Waterhouse Coopers, and prior to joining Price Waterhouse Coopers, he was a practicing hospital pharmacist for 7 years.

10+ years experience in the fields of preclinical research, cell biology, immunology and 1+ years clinical experience, including managing a top research laboratory at the University of Toronto.

30+ years experience leading quality teams, product design and project management. Led the building and certification of Advanced Cyclotron Systems’ ISO 13485 quality management system and was instrumental in Ossur orthopedics’ medical device product design.

Dr. Carrie Wang, an experienced surgeon and pharmacologist, has over 25 years’ experience in the development of medical products and combination products with preclinical and early clinical stage companies. She directed in vivo studies at Kardium as well as studies at Angiotech that led to the development of the drug eluting Taxus® stents and was project leader for the development of 5-FU coated central venous catheters at Angiotech.

At Xphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and PacGen Biopharmaceuticals, Corp. she directed due diligence activities and evaluated merger and acquisition opportunities, adding to her more than 10 years of experience in business development. Dr. Wang has 12 years clinical experience (as attending surgeon) in general and laparoscopic surgery and was one of the first laparoscopic surgeons in Sichuan province.

Aileen has over 5 years of hands-on experience in regulatory compliance, clinical design, risk management, and manufacturing process design, research and development. She is also the inventor of several patent families that protect ARC’s products. Aileen has previously held research and development positions in the Environmental Energy Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as well as University of California Berkeley. She is an active member of Engineers and Geoscientists BC (EGBC) and had previously served on the Student Liaison Committee at Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) that connects university students with industry professionals to promote networking and communication. Aileen has received Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarships in recognition of outstanding academic achievement during her graduate studies and University of California Berkeley College of Chemistry Dean’s Honors List in recognition of outstanding academic achievement during her undergraduate studies. Aileen holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Chemical Engineering and Master of Engineering degree (MEng) in Chemical Engineering.

25+ years experience in surgical adhesion product clinical trials and commercialization including Seprafilm®, Sepracoat®, Adept®, AdSpray® and Actamax Adhesion Barrier. (part-time)

Sailesh leads the drafting, filing and prosecuting of ARC’s broad patent portfolio, resulting in ARC obtaining several issued patents and recently filing numerous key patents that protect ARC’s products and processes through 2039. Sailesh is knowledgeable regarding nuances in patenting healthcare related inventions including the application of the Hatch-Waxman act, regulatory data protection in Europe and Canada, and patentable subject matter in key jurisdictions. Sailesh also oversees ARC’s trademark portfolio and marking of ARC’s copyright materials.

Sailesh leads ARC’s business development activities, including assisting with ARC’s first out-license deal in Japan, managing ARC’s in-licensed technology, and procuring key deals with suppliers and consultants.

Sailesh possesses over 7 years of experience in polysaccharide research and has co-developed projects with the ARC team on fucoidan extraction, purification, structural modification, and characterization, resulting in substantial contribution of matter to ARC’s recently filed key patents. Sailesh was also engaged in the transfer of ARC’s bench-scale production experiments to pilot scale production processes, resulting in ARC manufacturing its adhesion barrier product at an appreciable scale.

Sailesh holds a BSc (Honors) in Chemistry (his thesis was on polysaccharides) with a minor in commerce, a diploma in data science, a certificate in web development and several certificates in patenting.

Ellie has more than 5 years of experience leading and managing research, manufacturing, and supply chain management of Class III medical devices. She was a key member on the team that led ARC from a research-based company to a pre-clinical company and finally a clinical and medical therapeutics company. Ellie helped design and develop the manufacturing facility and multi-step processes ARC uses to make its product. She was on the team that built ARC’s rigorous quality management system that was successfully certified as meeting the internationally recognized ISO 13485 standard. Ellie has a BSc and MSc in Chemistry.

Dr. Mohammad Azim leads analytical method development and quality control at ARC Medical Inc. He has extensive experience in polysaccharide and related structural analysis and more than 10 years experience in analytical and bio-analytical method development. Dr. Azim developed and validated methods for composition analysis of polysaccharides and analysis of impurities in ARC’s product following strict ICH and USP guidelines. He developed a sampling plan and fucoidan stability study strategies. Dr. Azim has a BSc in Applied Chemistry, an MSc in Analytical Chemistry, and a PhD in Analytical Chemistry, and previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Quantitative Bioscience (QB3) at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Maurice Ndagijimana has 5 years of experience in quality control management and research and development and more than 10 years in carbohydrate chemistry research. He is an inventor of a patent family that is in ARC’s patent portfolio. Dr. Ndagijimana has co-led comprehensive and successful product stability plans, developed and validated analytical methods and coordinated the qualification of analytical instruments, and he is the originator or co-developer of several processes for quality control of raw material, in-process monitoring and release of product for pre-clinical use and human clinical trials. He was on the team that built ARC’s rigorous quality management system that was successfully certified as meeting the internationally recognized ISO 13485 standard.

Dr. Ndagijimana has previously held research and teaching positions at the University of Alberta (Canada) and the University of Bologna (Italy). He was a visiting scientist at Imperial College, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, (London, UK), and the University of Waterloo, Department of Chemistry (Ontario, Canada), among others. He has a BSc in Analytical Chemistry and a PhD in Biotechnology.

Noel has more than 25 years of accounting and finance experience at large and medium sized multi-national technology, manufacturing, distribution and financial service companies. He has extensive experience in full cycle accounting with focus on preparation of financial statements and financial reports that include consolidation, inter company account reconciliation, multi-currency reporting, analysis of balance sheet and profit and loss accounts, and preparation of executive reports. Noel has experience auditing with the development, testing and evaluation of key internal controls for financial processes in compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) requirements at Nokia Corp’s offices in Australia, USA, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Philippines.

Noel was part of the start-up management team that catapulted Nokia Corporation to its market leadership position after a year of operation in the Philippines, and he effectively led revenue and cost forecasting and analysis that allowed Nokia to capture market leadership in the Philippines and Indonesia.

Noel previously held positions at Nokia Corporation, Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company, CBV Collection Services. Inc., Endurance Wind Power Inc., and SGV & Co. CPAs, a member of Ernst & Young International.

He has a BSc (Cum Laude honors) in Commerce, Accounting and a minor in Economics, CPA (Phils) certificate, and is a graduate of Nokia Corp.’s Management Development Program.

Bryan leads ARC’s preclinical program, which passed more than a dozen different biocompatibility tests following the ISO 10993 set of biocompatibility standards, and Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). He has initiated, controlled, and closed in vivo preclinical research projects, including study protocol design, study monitoring, and writing of scientific study reports.

Bryan spent more than 6 years in polysaccharide research and with the ARC Team developed projects on fucoidan extraction, purification, structural modification, and characterization resulting in a substantial contribution to ARC’s patent portfolio. Bryan was a key figure in manufacturing activities that included the successful transfer of ARC’s bench-scale experiments to a pilot-scale production process that made batches of ARC’s adhesion barrier product for use in preclinical research and Phase I clinical trials, following ISO 13485:2016 compliance requirements for manufacturing medical devices.

Bryan has a BSc in Biochemistry and a certificate for Advanced Project Management.

Steve has more than 25 years experience as an IT director and IT leader, consultant, and application developer for life sciences companies. He oversaw all aspects of IT through numerous mergers, acquisitions, moves, regulatory compliance initiatives, enterprise software implementations, cloud migrations, etc. Steve held positions and provided services for companies of varying stages, regulatory agencies, and NGOs, including Angiotech, Novopharm, BASF, Health Canada, Industry Canada, Agriculture Canada, UBC Fisheries, Telefonica, Sun Microsystems, BC Biotechnology Alliance, and Centre for Digital Media.

Steve holds a Master of Digital Media degree awarded by UBC, SFU, ECIAD, BCIT and a BSc from UWaterloo.

Steve’s other passions are game development, hobby farming, kitesurfing, and angel investing.

He qualified at St Georges Medical School, University of London in 1984. He started his training in Reproductive medicine and surgery at Guys Hospital London in 1989 and was appointed lecturer at the Royal London Hospital in 1992. He moved to the Hammersmith Hospital in 1993 to continue under Prof Lord Robert Winston until 1995 when he was appointed Consultant in Reproductive Medicine & Surgery as well as Honorary Senior Lecturer in Imperial College London.

He was the RCOG Training Programme Director for NW London for 12 years and Chief of Service for Reproductive Medicine for Imperial College NHS Trust for 10 years.

In 2012 he was one of the Founding Directors of what is now ‘The Fertility Partnership’ and continues as the Group Clinical Director. He is still an Honorary Senior Lecturer at Imperial College London, but retired from the NHS 2 years ago.

He has published over 120 peer reviewed journals as well as over 15 chapters for text books. He lectures both nationally and internationally in the field of reproductive medicine and surgically he is internationally known for his work in peritoneal and uterine adhesions. He is one of the few surgeons recommended by the International Ashermans Society.

Dr. Donald Menzies is a general surgeon with more than 35 years of experience and a particular interest in adhesions, gastro-oesophageal reflux, gall stones, incisional and groin hernias, and therapeutic endoscopy at Colchester General Hospital and Ramsay Oaks Hospital, Essex. He obtained his Master of Surgery in abdominal adhesions at the University of London and is an expert in minimal access surgery using laparoscopic techniques, having performed such procedures since 1992. During his clinical appointment at Westminster hospital he completed a series of experimental studies in collaboration with Genentech (USA) that investigated adhesion formation. These studies have been coupled with a clinical analysis of the incidence of adhesions in over 28,000 surgical admissions, an examination of the incidence and site of adhesion production after abdominal surgery and an examination of the type of post-operative adhesion that produce intestinal obstruction. For this research he was awarded the Hunterian Professorship, Royal College of Surgeons of England and Wales (1990 – 1991). He has been closely involved in other adhesion related research involving the SCAR studies which identified the national burden of adhesion disease, and the ARIEL registry, an international record of the use of an anti-adhesion barrier.

Dr. Menzies is the President of the Association of Laparoscopic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, a member of the British Medical Association, the Association of Upper GI Surgeons and the Association of Surgeons. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

He is currently the Senior Consultant General Surgeon at Colchester Hospital University Foundation Trust and  Ramsay Oaks Hospital, Colchester.

Dr. Alex McConnachie

Clinical Trial Biostatistics Leader

Alex McConnachie is a Professor of Clinical Trial Biostatistics, and Assistant Director of Biostatistics at the Robertson Centre for Biostatistics, University of Glasgow. He has played a significant role in the design and/or analysis of many medical research projects, including over 65 randomised trials, two of which were clinical trials regarding surgical adhesions. Prof McConnachie has more than 250 publications and his research has been cited more than 13,000 times.