David Charest

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT DAVID CHAREST

A leader with 20 years experience in applied and translational research and development, David has worked for and partnered with innovative organizations to positively impact the health and life sciences sectors. After completing his PhD at UBC, David worked for two start-up biotechnology companies leading pre-clinical research teams focused on target identification, validation and assay development to support downstream drug discovery platforms. During this period, he was also responsible for integrating the operational activities of an acquired biotechnology company and managing strategic collaborative partnerships. David’s accomplishments in program management include directing a team of scientists in the execution of multimillion-dollar R&D portfolio of large-scale projects involving alliances with national and international partners. David worked closely with team leaders, science advisors and stakeholder partners to ensure delivery of project objectives. He also managed project collaborative agreements, executing transactions with research partners in academia, industry and government organizations. For the past 7 years David’s work has focused on business development. In this role he is responsible for building external relationships with partners, working closely with a variety of stakeholders from public and government sectors, understanding their challenges and opportunities and creating linkages and partnerships to find innovative solutions. David also works directly with start-up health and life sciences companies supporting their development of innovative technologies for commercialization.