Augurex is very proud to announce that Natalie Dakers, Chair of our Board of Directors, has been awarded the 2019 Milton Wong Award. Natalie’s award is well-deserved given her outstanding leadership and notable impact on the Life Sciences ecosystem, which Augurex has been a beneficiary of. We look forward to celebrating with her and other colleagues tomorrow night at the 21st Annual Life Sciences BC Gala.
About Natalie Dakers
Ms. Dakers began her career in Life Sciences at the University of British Columbia, managing technology transfer for the University Industry Liaison Office (UILO) where she was involved in the creation and spin-off of more than a dozen start-up high-tech and biotech companies. She then went on to co-found NeuroMed Technologies Inc., a private biotechnology company developing drugs for pain, anxiety, epilepsy, and cardiovascular disease where she raised $70M in venture funding. She subsequently became founding CEO of a national Centre of Excellence for Drug Research and Commercialization (CDRD) where she signed affiliation agreements with more than 20 major research institutions in Canada and around the world and forged important strategic relationships with both public and private sector partners. Under her leadership, $120M in funding was raised, the number of employees grew to over 100 and CVI, a commercial arm was launched and successfully created a number of companies including Kairos Therapeutics, Sitka Biopharma, Zucara Therapeutics, and Mesentech. Ms. Dakers is currently President and CEO of Accel-Rx Health Sciences Accelerator Society, an organization that identifies and supports promising early-stage companies by providing seed stage capital and expertise.
An Adjunct Professor in UBC’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical sciences, she is currently a board member of BIOTECanada, BioTalent, ImStar, KisoJi, STEMCELL Technologies and Chair of Augurex Inc. Ms. Dakers also serves as an Affiliate at Creative Destruction Labs and as a Committee Member for NSERC Research Partnership Advisory Committee. She has garnered numerous honours including Startup Canada’s Entrepreneur of the year award (2015), WXN Top 100 Most Powerful Women (2016, 2018), Business in Vancouver’s Most Influential Women (2017) and now the Milton Wong Award for Leadership (2019).