Senior Management

Dr. Helliwell is the Co-founder and CEO of Eupraxia Pharmaceuticals. A board-certified Cardiac Anesthesiologist, he previously maintained a busy quaternary clinical and academic practice with a focus on cardiac transplantation and held a double tenure as President of the Anesthesiologists of BC.

Dr. Helliwell’s experience in the operating room and ICU instilled an appreciation for the value of precision drug delivery to achieve successful patient outcomes. This led him to create Eupraxia Pharmaceuticals, a company developing precision medicines in areas of high unmet medical need. In 2021, Eupraxia became the first biotech to successfully list exclusively on the Toronto Stock Exchange in almost 20 years. The company’s lead product candidate – a long-acting corticosteroid to treat osteoarthritis pain – is currently in Phase 2 clinical development.

Dr. Helliwell has also applied precision delivery to the medical device space. As Co-founder and CEO of Accuro Technologies, he invented Arthrotap® – a medical device to improve the accuracy of intra-articular injections. After successfully transacting on Accuro, he moved on to serve as Chair of the Board for Guidestar Medical Devices – a company focused on precision medicines delivery for the epidural space.

Eupraxia co-founder Dr. Malone has worked on the development of drug delivery systems for nearly 15 years. Dr. Malone has worked on multiple complex extended-release products including: parenteral injections for the treatment and prevention of a wide variety of diseases, intravaginal rings releasing multiple drugs for the prevention of HIV, anti-infective films for the prevention of surgical site infections and topical co-drugs for the treatment of herpes. Dr. Malone has authored 15 publications related to bone function and polymer-based drug delivery, as well as authoring five distinct patent families with patents granted in the US, EU and Oceania. She has been a Principal Investigator on studies awarded more than US$11 million in grant funding from both the US and Canadian governments and was a National Science Foundation Fellow.

While at Eupraxia, she has guided the scientific programs through pre-clinical and manufacturing development, the regulatory process in multiple jurisdictions and into the clinic. Prior to joining Eupraxia, Dr. Malone was the VP and COO of a drug-delivery focused biotech company, Auritec. She graduated with High Honors from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California with a degree in Engineering, received her master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and was the inaugural PhD student in Stanford’s Bioengineering Department, where she received a BioX Fellowship.

Bruce Cousins has more than 30 years life sciences company experience, in both financial and operational roles spanning organizations from large multinational corporations to emerging early phase companies. Formerly, Bruce was Executive Vice President & CFO at Arbutus Biopharma (NASDAQ:ABUS) from 2013 to 2018. During his tenure he was instrumental in raising significant equity financing for the company and completing a merger transaction with OnCore Biopharma, an emerging private company in Pennsylvania focused on Hepatitis B. Previously he was Chief Financial Officer of Aspreva Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NASDAQ: ASPV) from 2004 to 2008. During his tenure the organization progressed from a small, private start-up to an inter-listed company with operations in Canada, US, UK and Switzerland, and a peak market cap of more than $700mm. In late 2007, Bruce was instrumental in leading the sale transaction of the company to the Galenica Group for $915 million, delivering a 24% premium to shareholders. Bruce started his life sciences career with Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), where from 1991 to 2004 he worked in a variety of franchises globally including Orthopedics and Wound Closure, completing his tenure with the Wound Management franchise.

Prior to entering the pharmaceutical industry, Mr. Cousins was a chartered accountant with Deloitte & Touche in Toronto, Canada. Mr. Cousins completed a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) degree from McMaster University in 1987 and received a Chartered Accountant designation in 1989.

Ash Bassett has over 15 years of management, accounting and finance experience in both public practice and technology startups in Canada and Australia. In his previous role as Director of Finance at Pulse Energy, he managed the finance and administrative functions of a rapidly growing software development company. This led to its successful acquisition by EnerNOC in late 2014. Since joining Eupraxia in 2016, Ash has developed and overseen all facets of the finance, outsourcing, human resources and information technology functions.

Mr Bassett has a Bachelor of Commerce with a major in Accounting & Finance from Curtin University of Technology and also maintains his CPA designation with CPA Australia.

Vik Peck has close to 25 years of experience in global pharmaceutical development. Prior to joining Eupraxia, Ms. Peck was the Head of Global Project Management at Vifor Pharma, where she directed flagship products and initiatives, from lead identification through development, approval and global launch. She holds a Combined Honours degree in Biology and Journalism from Carleton University and is a longstanding, certified Project Management Professional.

Dr. Murray Webb has more than 25 years of experience in drug discovery and development in both industrial and academic settings, with a focus on the conduct and management of translational preclinical studies supporting the entry of novel drugs into clinical trials. Dr. Webb holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia.

Troy Loss has developed and manufactured drug delivery systems for 20 years, both at Northern Lipids and Angiotech Pharmaceuticals. At Northern Lipids, he rose from Manufacturing Associate to GMP Facility Manager and oversaw all operations of their GMP manufacturing facility, which produced sustained release lipid-based formulations.

At Angiotech, he contributed to the development of drug coated medical devices and formulations designed for local drug delivery. Mr. Loss received a BSc. (Hon) in Chemistry from the University of British Columbia.