Overview
The BDC Program is excited to welcome you to our annual BDC Engage Symposium, taking place on April 9, 2021! The Symposium provides an opportunity for our students to share their work and accomplishments with our community and celebrate the end of the academic year. Each year we showcase work from our third year and Master of Biomedical and Discovery Commercialization students. Please join us to celebrate the success of our students.
Morning Session
Keynote and Third Year Undergraduate Pitches
9:30: Director’s Welcome
9:35: Keynote Speaker: Patricia Hrynyk
Director Brand Marketing Canada, Moderna
“Reflections on building a brand and a company amidst the pandemic”
10:30: Third Year Drug Discovery and Commercialization Pitches
11:20: Winning Pitch Announcement
Afternoon Session
Master of BDC Internship Presentations
1:30: Director’s Welcome
1:35: Session One – Master of BDC Internship Presentations
2:15: Session Two – Master of BDC Internship Presentations
2:55: Session Three – Master of BDC Internship Presentations
3:35: Winning Presentation Announcement
3:40: Open Q&A with Master of BDC Students
Keynote Speaker: Patricia Hrynyk
Director Brand Marketing Canada, Moderna
“Reflections on Building a Brand and a Company Amidst the Pandemic”
Patricia Hrynyk recently joined Moderna at a critical time as Director Brand Marketing, where she leads commercial brand strategy and execution in Canada in the vaccines and therapeutics space.
She has over 16 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in progressively senior roles across sales, marketing, and business development.
She brings deep expertise and knowledge of the public health system in Canada, having collaborated with stakeholders to launch new vaccines and therapeutics in the Canadian market and through the execution of innovative commercial strategies to drive growth across numerous pharmaceutical manufacturer portfolios.
Patricia holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology & Pharmacology Co-op from McMaster University, an MBA Co-op from the University of Windsor and is an active member of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association where she serves as Marketing & Communications Lead for the Toronto Chapter.
Third Year Undergraduate Pitches
The third-year BDC student teams have been working alongside their research mentors (Dr. Lesley MacNeil and Dr. Yu Lu) to design creative solutions to biomedical problems. The 12 teams have each created an amazing poster that will be accompanied by a three-minute pitch.
Master of BDC Internship Presentations
The Master of BDC students will be presenting an overview of their internship experience in the pharmaceutical, therapeutic, biotechnology and consulting sectors, and how the experience has prepared them for the next steps in their career.
Session One – 1:30 PM
Information Box Group

Yonathan Agung
Business Development Intern
AmacaThera

Yasamin Allahverdi
Business Analyst Intern
Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization

Dawood Al-Wattar
Business Analytics Intern
AstraZeneca

Shilpa Bhardwaj
Health Economics and Market Access Associate
Cosm Medical

Christopher Juman
Health Economics and Market Access Associate
Johnson & Johnson

Katrina Cordovado
Business Development Analyst
The Clinic@Mac

Aaron Park
Product Manager
Trudell Medical International

Taneya Janakan
Associate Product Manager
Horizon Therapeutics
Session Two – 2:15 PM
Information Box Group

Rachael Gregoris
Business Development Analyst
MILO

Emily Xu
Business Analyst Intern
Centre for Probe Development and Commercialization

Bichoy Labib
Customer Experience and Operations Intern
Boehringer Ingelheim

Vraj Shah
Primary Care and Medical Operations Intern
Bayer

Ainsley Lin
Associate Technical Regulatory Team Member
Roche

Jonathan Moroniti
Research Assistant, Value & Evidence
EVERSANA

Harry Sandhu
Business Development Manager
Micellae Delivery Systems
Session Three – 2:55 PM
Information Box Group

Parisa Agahi
Clinical Data Management Intern
AstraZeneca

Victoria Kirkness
Market Research Analyst/Research Co-ordinator
Hirota Lab, McMaster University

Tameem Quader
Business Development Analyst Intern
Neurescence

Viktoriya Rybenchuk
Scientific Commercialization Specialist
Micellae Delivery Systems

Sohaib Syed
Sales & Marketing, Diabetes Intern
AstraZeneca

Thaaniya Nanthakumar
Business Development Intern
Axem Neurotechnology

Richard Wang
Medical Affairs Intern
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Canada