Management Team

Gilles Gagnon serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Ceapro. Prior to joining Ceapro, he was President and CEO of Aeterna Zentaris, a Nasdaq-listed biopharmaceutical company. During the past 35 years, Mr. Gagnon has worked at several management levels within the field of health, especially in the hospital environment and pharmaceutical industry. Before going to Aeterna Zentaris in 1999, Mr. Gagnon was Vice President, external affairs for Novartis Pharma Canada Inc. from 1996 to 1999. Prior to that, from 1989 to 1996, Mr. Gagnon held various positions including Executive Director, Corporate Planning and Business Development, Senior Director, Strategic Alliances, General Manager, Government Affairs and Access to Market and Director of Professional Services at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals Inc. Throughout his career in the pharmaceutical industry, Mr. Gagnon was especially involved in corporate development, alliance management, as well as marketing functions where he participated in the launch of nine innovative pharmaceutical products in addition to his general management functions.

Mr. Gagnon has participated in several international committees and strategic advisory boards. He completed three mandates on the board of directors of Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (Rx&D, now Innovative Medicine Canada) where he represented for nine years members from the biopharmaceutical sector and pioneered the Rx&D's Canadian bio partnering initiative. He also served on various boards in the life sciences industry including private organizations like Bio Quebec (Chairman) and Montreal In Vivo as well as publicly-traded biotech Nasdaq listed companies. Mr. Gagnon holds a master’s degree in pharmacology (M.Sc.) and a master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from Sherbrooke University, a certificate in General Management from the London Business School, UK and holds an ICD.D certification for completing the Directors Education Program at the Rothman School of Management of University of Toronto. He is a member of the Canadian Institute of Corporate Directors.

Stacy Prefontaine serves as the Chief Financial Officer at Ceapro. She is an accomplished global finance and accounting executive with close to two decades of experience in public company external financial reporting, corporate tax compliance and planning, and accounting practices and controls. She has led assurance and accounting services for numerous leading private and public companies assisting with their successful fund-raising ventures including offering memorandums and initial public offerings, and with their adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards. Prior to joining Ceapro, Ms. Prefontaine was a Principal at Grant Thornton LLP, one of the world's leading organizations of independent audit, tax and advisory firms, where she led assurance services for a variety of public and private organizations for the last four years. She joined Grant Thornton in 2011 when it acquired Stout & Company LLP, an Edmonton accounting and advisory firm, where Ms. Prefontaine was a Partner. Previously, she was a manager with increasing responsibility in client service accounting for over five years at Collins Barrow Calgary LLP, one of Canada's largest associations of Chartered Accounting firms.

Ms. Prefontaine earned her Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, and her designation as Chartered Accountant from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta.

Mr. Regnier is an experienced and respected Operations Executive and Professional Engineer with 20+ years of progressive technical and leadership experience in the medical device, pharmaceutical and aerospace materials manufacturing industries. Over the course of his career, he has established a successful track record of leading cross functional technical and nontechnical teams, developing effective action plans, and working with international partners. Prior to joining Ceapro, Mr. Regnier served in a number of roles at Oerlikon Metco (Canada) Inc., a subsidiary of OC Oerlikon AG, a global provider of industrial technology based in Switzerland, with a focus on manufacturing of specialty materials, primarily nickel-based metal powders. In his most recent role at Oerlikon as the General Manager, Composite Materials for Aerospace, Electronics, Mining and Energy, he successfully led a team of 70 - 80 employees through the global pandemic and into back-to-back record years for revenue and profitability. Additionally, he served as the VP of Operations, Advanced Materials R&D for Infection Prevention and Control at Exciton Technologies, Inc., where he led the completion of product development and pilot manufacturing operations for the company's commercialization of their proprietary antimicrobial silver technology. Other career appointments include Director, Product Development and Director, Engineering at Nucryst Pharmaceuticals Corp.

Leoni DeJoya serves as the Vice President, Bioprocessing Business Unit at Ceapro. She began her career at Ceapro in 2008 as Manager, Quality Assurance and became in charge of production operations at the Ceapro’s Leduc site in 2012 to ensure continuity of supply of high quality products during the construction period for a new extraction facility in Edmonton. As Vice President of Ceapro’s Bioprocessing Business Unit, she is responsible for both technical operations and account management. She is a quality specialist and quality management system lead auditor with over 25 years of experience in international manufacturing and QA/AC in GMP, HACCP, ISO/IEC 17025, EPA and FDA-regulated pharmaceuticals. In addition to manufacturing, she comes with extensive experience in commercial laboratories, ISO certification, petrochemical, pesticides/nematicides formulation, and food processing.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology, a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, a Master of Science in Environmental Engineering and Resource Management, and a Master of Science in Business Administration. She also completed the mini-MBA as part of the Executive Development Program at McGill University in Montreal.

Dr. Seifried serves as Senior Director, Research & Technology at Ceapro. Dr. Seifried is the co-inventor of the Company’s proprietary pressurized gas expanded (PGX) Technology, a novel drying technology for water soluble polymers utilizing PGX liquids. In 2010 Dr. Seifried joined Ceapro, focusing on further development and scale-up of the PGX Technology, which can generate fine structured open-porous biopolymer morphologies and exfoliated nano-composites for a wide range of applications including drug delivery, wound healing, cosmetics and nutraceuticals.  His main areas of research are related to fundamental physical properties of supercritical fluids and PGX liquids, as well as their application for the development of novel sustainable processes. Dr. Seifried authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals, a book chapter and presented in many national and international conferences related to supercritical fluids, nano-composites, biotechnology and food engineering. He won numerous awards in his academic and industrial career including the Alberta Innovates –Industry Associate R&D Award and the award for Scientific Achievement and Innovation from BioAlberta in 2014.

He holds an M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Graz University of Technology in Austria and a Ph.D. in Food and Bioresource Engineering from the University of Alberta.

Dr. Jacqueline Eskander Ebrahim serves as Senior Director, Product Development & Regulatory Affairs at Ceapro. She is specialized in the extraction, purification and structural elucidation of natural drug substances of plant origin like saponins, flavonoids, polyphenolics, gallotannins, ellagitannins and condensed tannins. Over the course of her career at Ceapro, along with the R&D research team and with her work experience over 20 years, she has implemented all her academic knowledge together with her research expertise to develop new procedures to purify and concentrate avenanthramides in oats using an innovative scale-up technology. She has authored and Co-authored over 15 publications in the International Journals of Natural products as Fitoterapia, 106 (2015) 272-279, Medicinal Chemistry Research, 23 (2014) 717-724, European Journal of Medicinal Plants, 3 (2014) 271-283, Medicinal Chemistry Research, 22 (2013) 4877-4885, Phytochemistry, 72 (2011) 946-951, Fitoterapia, 81 (2010) 371-374, Phytochemistry, 67 (2006) 1793-1799, J. Nat. Prod., 68 (2005) 832-841.

Dr. Eskander graduated from Faculty of Pharmacy-Cairo University and obtained her master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences. She completed her thesis at Faculty of Pharmacy-University of Reims in France and earned her Ph.D. in Pharmacognosy/Chemistry of Natural Products and accepted the position of Lecturer of Phytochemistry at the Faculty of Pharmacy. She was granted a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the CNRS at University of Reims-France.

Dr. Paul Moquin serves as Director, Scientific Affairs & New Business Development at Ceapro.  He initially joined Ceapro as a Project Manager before leading the Applied Research and Development team. Over the last decade of his work at Ceapro, Dr. Moquin and his team have improved manufacturing processes, developed novel processes and ingredients, and were involved in designing, building and establishing a new manufacturing plant for Ceapro in Edmonton. Prior to joining Ceapro, Dr. Moquin was a researcher and instructor at the University of Alberta where he obtained a doctorate in Bioresource and Food Engineering after studying reactions in supercritical fluid technology using specialized custom equipment that he had designed and built. Prior to conducting his graduate studies, Dr. Moquin obtained a B.Sc. in Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Alberta. 

During his academic training, Dr. Moquin also had the opportunity to study at the Institute of Chemical Technology and Institute of Chemical Process Fundamentals in Prague where he developed his technical research skills. His academic studies provided him with a sound training in applied life sciences and bioengineering. He also worked in the quality department of Labatt Breweries and Heritage Frozen Foods Ltd. where he developed a passion for generating sustainable processing technologies.

Denis Bilodeau serves as a Strategic Advisor at Ceapro especially involved in the management of clinical trials and corporate development functions. He is an established clinical, pharmaceutical and medical device expert with 35 years of experience in the public and private sectors. He currently holds executive functions for medical device and pharmaceutical enterprises, including SoundBite Medical Solutions. Over the course of his career, he has served in executive roles including Vice-President, Administration at Génome Québec and Director of Innovation at the Montreal Heart Institute. Mr. Bilodeau also served as Interim CEO of Genome Quebec. As Executive Director of the CARTaGENE project, he successfully led the recruitment of 20,000 participants and the associated BioBank. Prior to that, he held successive positions in clinical research, scientific development and marketing in reputable organizations such as Sandoz, Aventis, PAREXEL and Debiopharm taking him on international assignments.