Jean-François Houle

Dr. Jean-François Houle joined the NRC as Director of Research and Development for the Medical Devices Research Centre in June 2014. In March 2017, he was named to the position of General Manager. Between March 2020 and October 2022, he was Vice-President of the Pandemic Response Challenge program, and in April 2022 became the Vice-President of the Engineering division.

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Prior to joining the NRC, Dr. Houle had spent 14 years leading business, corporate and product development activities in private and public biotechnology firms at various stages of development, from university spin-offs to more established companies. Most recently, as COO of Kapplex, he guided the company through its initial spin-out of the university into a full-fledged funded start-up. He rapidly struck collaborations with leading pharmaceutical, diagnostic and life sciences companies and leveraged this interest to raise additional funds to support co-development projects and the start-up.

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Dr. Houle holds a Ph.D. in Experimental Medicine from McGill University.