Director, Apotex Global Operations

APOTEX

Laura graduated from Queen’s University with an honors degree in Chemistry in 1998. Following graduation she relocated to Boston, MA to begin her industrial career at Cabot Corporation as a research scientist. While her time at Cabot was short, it enabled her to take advantage of the rich pool of pharmaceutical companies in the area and she was fortunate to be hired by a new startup company, Paratek Pharmaceuticals. Laura spent the next 10 years as a medicinal chemist with the opportunity to design, synthesize, and optimize compounds for a variety of indications, and is proud to be named Inventor of Record for Nuzyra®, a modernized Tetracycline antibiotic targeting drug resistant pathogens.

During her time at Paratek, Laura became exposed to areas outside of the chemistry lab and was eager to build on her skillset in the project management area after a move back to Canada. Patheon provided this opportunity as a Project Manager. During her 6 years, Laura ensured successful delivery of products to Clinical Trials for multiple Clients through managing timelines, technical scope, budgets, and expectations. While this was a rewarding experience, there was a side of the business yet to explore, and this was Commercial production.

Laura has been with Apotex, a Canadian generic pharmaceutical company, for 8 years, holding increasingly senior roles within technical project management. Currently, as Associate Director, she leads an expanded role focusing on building a global program management department for Apotex’s finished dosage sites, incorporating not only the Canadian operations but also global sites. In addition to her work in execution strategy, tracking, and managing a portfolio of over 120 projects aimed at improving product performance, Laura also leads multiple strategic programs centered on cost and efficiency optimizations, aimed at maximizing Apotex’s extensive production network. Her focus is to deliver quality, cost-competitive medicines to a global customer base through industry-leading program management practices, while continuing to provide strategic vision and foster team development.