Joseph Mancini

Job Title: Vice President and Head of Biological Sciences
Company: adMare BioInnovations

As Vice President, Innovation – Biological Sciences, Dr. Joseph Mancini plays a central role in leading adMare’s R&D team and the strategic development and advancement of adMare’s pipeline of drug development projects to support the building of strong Canadian life sciences companies. Joe brings more than 30 years of experience in drug discovery to the role, and is responsible for overseeing the biology and pharmacology efforts at both adMare’s Montreal and Vancouver Innovation Centres.

Prior to joining adMare in 2020, Joe spent 20 years at Merck, a leading global biopharmaceutical company, where he was responsible for developing novel therapies to treat inflammation, diabetes, and obesity – including being key in the discovery of VioxxTM and ArcoxiaTM, and the Biology Lead for a PDE4-inhibitor for Asthma, and for four INDs and human proof-of-concept trials.

Following his tenure at Merck, Joe joined Vertex Pharmaceuticals where, as Head of Pharmacology and Biology Project Leader, he led the Pharmacology group and a team that developed a therapy to treat Crohn’s disease (licensed to Takeda), as well as initiated new programs in ADPKD and a rare muscular disease.

Joe has been an Adjunct Professor at one of Canada’s top research universities, Montreal’s McGill, since 2000, and is credited with 94 publications and seven patents. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry from McGill University.