April 21, 2022, Toronto, CANADA — BenchSci, a global leader in machine learning applications for novel medicine development, announced that former Shopify Chief Technical Officer Jean-Michel Lemieux has joined its advisory board. Lemieux will counsel the company as it expands the impact of its industry-leading biomedical software platform to further empower scientists and accelerate R&D.

Lemieux has worked in tech for almost 30 years. He was a founding member on the Eclipse platform and open-source teams. He then led and grew the engineering organizations at Atlassian and Shopify and prepared both companies to scale and IPO. He is an author, investor, and advisor and has a passion for community and education, co-founding Canadian Tech @ Scale, which brings together tech leaders from across Canada, and DevDegree.ca, an accredited work-integrated computer science degree. 

“We’re incredibly excited to have Jean-Michel join our advisory board,” says Liran Belenzon, CEO, BenchSci. “ The advisory board helps guide our leadership team and BenchSci to new, innovative heights, and Jean-Michel is going to add a wealth of knowledge when it comes to scaling engineering teams. He’s a strategic thinker who started out in software himself and with his guidance, we will continue to build out our world-class technology, talent, and culture in hypergrowth.”

Lemieux’s experience influencing critical technology decisions and building products, platforms, and companies at scale will be relevant as BenchSci evolves from a point solution for reagent and model system selection, expanding its platform’s capabilities to help global pharmaceutical companies plan, execute, and gain insights from more successful R&D projects.

"I'm excited to be helping BenchSci scale and grow their team and technology platform,” says Lemieux. “We've learned from the pandemic that it's critical to invest in technology that helps speed up our scientists as they research and test new health innovations."

As BenchSci evolves its platform, its advisory board provides strategic input and guidance on their respective areas of expertise. Lemieux joins technology advisors Milind Kamkolkar, CDO at Cellarity, and Richard Zemel, Research Director at Vector Institute; and culture advisor Jessica Neal, Venture Partner at TCV. BenchSci's advisory board also includes science advisors Steve Hitchcock, Global Head of Research at Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Philip Larsen, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research at Bayer Pharmaceuticals; and Philip Tagari, Vice President of Research (Therapeutic Discovery) at Amgen. 

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About BenchSci

BenchSci’s vision is to bring novel medicine to patients 50% faster by 2025. We’re achieving it by empowering scientists with the world’s most advanced biomedical artificial intelligence. Backed by top-tier investors including Inovia Capital, TCV, F-Prime, Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), and Golden Ventures, our platform accelerates science at 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 leading research centers worldwide. We’re a remote-first Deloitte Tech Fast 50 and CIX Top 10 Growth company, certified Great Place to Work®, and top-ranked company on Glassdoor. Learn more at www.benchsci.com.