Search
Français

Leadership Team

Edward Gudaitis , , , President and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Gudaitis serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation. Mr. Gudaitis has spent over 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry. He has extensive experience in specialty markets such as Oncology, Hepatitis, HIV, CNS and Transplantation. His functional experience spans Country leadership, Business Unit Leadership, Marketing and Sales Management, Market Access, Pricing, Health Economics and Clinical Research. Mr. Gudaitis is best known for his role as General Manager for Gilead Sciences Canada Inc. where he was responsible for leading Gilead’s Canadian affiliate from start-up in 2005 to one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in Canada in 2015 with sales of over $1 billion. He also led the launch of two significant products in the US market for Gilead as Senior Director, Marketing for Gilead’s US HIV Business. Prior to Acerus, Mr. Gudaitis served as Vice President and General Manager of Allergan Canada where he led a significant portfolio optimization process and leadership transformation. Earlier in his career he spent more than 10 years at Hoffmann-La Roche in roles of increasing responsibility. Mr. Gudaitis received his MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business and his BSc from Brock University. He has served as Chairman of both the Ethics and Prairies Regional Committees while a board member for Innovative Medicines Canada. As well, he has served as board member for BioteCanada.

Gavin Damstra , , , Senior Vice President, International Commercial

Mr. Damstra serves as Senior Vice President, International Commercial of Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation. Mr. Damstra brings significant international pharmaceutical and operational experience to this role with over 15 years experience working abroad. Most recently Mr. Damstra led the Women’s Health and GI Business Unit for Allergan Canada.  In this role, he was responsible for leading the commercial and P&L results of a $160M CAD business unit.  Prior to Allergan, Mr. Damstra was employed by Takeda Pharmaceuticals as General Manager for Colombia and managed the surrounding distributor markets (Costa Rica and Panama) where he implemented the successful launch of Takeda’s specialty and oncology business resulting in the leading growth and financial performance across all of Takeda’s emerging markets. Mr. Damstra also held positions at Takeda’s International offices in Switzerland as Launch Readiness Director for the Emerging Markets. Mr. Damstra received his international MBA from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) and his undergraduate degrees in Life Sciences and Economics from Queen’s University.

Philippe Savard , , , Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary

Mr. Savard serves as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary with responsibility for protecting the legal interests of Acerus and managing its legal affairs. Prior to joining Acerus, Mr. Savard was Director & Counsel at DRI Capital Inc., a firm which manages private equity funds that purchase royalties owed on the sales of pharmaceutical products. Prior to his time at DRI Capital, Mr. Savard worked as an associate at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in Toronto, with a practice focused on transactional corporate securities, and as an associate at the law firm of Ropes & Gray LLP in New York, with a practice focused on corporate securities, mergers and acquisition and private equity. Mr. Savard holds a B. Sc. and a M. Sc. in Microbiology and Immunology from McGill University, a J.D. from the University of Toronto and a M.B.A. from the Rotman School of Management (University of Toronto).

Christopher Sorli , , , Chief Medical Officer

Prior to joining Acerus, Dr. Sorli was the Vice President US Medical Affairs & Head of Cardio-Metabolic Disease for Sanofi (NASDAQ: SNY). In this role, he was responsible for all US medical affairs activities for diabetes, cardiovascular issues, metabolic diseases, and integrated care solutions for a diverse portfolio of products at various stages across the product lifecycle. From 2016 – 2018 he was the Global Medical Lead for New Products with the Diabetes and Cardiovascular Business Unit at Sanofi, where he provided medical input into early clinical development candidates. Prior to his time at Sanofi, Dr. Sorli founded and led the Billings Clinic Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism Center, a large state-wide centre of excellence in endocrinology in Montana. While in clinical practice, one of his clinical specialties was men's health.

Dr. Sorli completed his medical training at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, his internship and residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, and his fellowship at the University of Minnesota. He is Board Certified in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, and Internal Medicine. He is nationally and internationally recognized as a Key Opinion Leader for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism. Dr. Sorli has been the principal investigator on numerous industry-sponsored clinical studies, a member of several advisory boards, an invited lecturer, and an FDA AdCom presenter.

Acerus Pharmaceuticals

ESTRACE® and the ACERUS PHARMA logo are trademarks of Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation. NATESTO® name and logo are trademarks of Acerus Biopharma Inc., used under licence.

Contact Us
Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation
location 7025 Langer Drive Suite 205, Mississauga, ON, L5N 0E8 CANADA
phone 416.679.0771


© 2019 Acerus Pharmaceuticals Corporation