As you read through our website, you will get an idea of who we are; our philosophy, our standards and our passion. You’ll see how we’ve heard your challenges and do our best to address them. Every year we solicit feedback from clients, industry peers, sites, and vendors; asking about what’s going well, what needs to be changed, and what needs they see in the near and long-term future. We use this information to grow and fine-tune Stiris.
We listen. Not to respond, but to hear and understand. People often ask us why we can do things other companies can’t. Why, when we rescue a study, can we get sites back on board with recruiting when they told the other group they were done? How is it that our retention rate is so high (although one client did give us the answer – because we don’t give them a reason to leave)? What do we do that makes sites want to collaborate, and go the extra mile for us? What is our secret sauce? The answer is really quite simple. Everyone on Stiris’ clinical team is working for the same ‘Why’ – to make a difference in someone’s life.
The regional structure of your team can greatly affect the cost and efficiency of your trial. Stiris’ regional CRAs allow ease of access to sites, familiarity with local sites, and cultural fit. Sometimes location can be a driver for your success. Stiris is an expert in conducting clinical trials in North America. Our strategic Alliance Partners are experts in their global region. Together, our strong, regionally based team may be just what your study needs.
We will not switch someone off your study to use on another study.
Every Stiris client will have access to our Senior Management Team.
Shantal is the founder of Stiris Research. Before starting Stiris, Shantal was a Director at a mid-sized CRO where she led teams in global and North American clinical trials. Prior to that, Shantal held positions at both Hoffmann-La Roche and Janssen Ortho Inc. (Johnson & Johnson group of families). Shantal began her career as a Study Coordinator, working with treatment resistant schizophrenic patients.
Shantal and Stiris are the recipients of the PROFIT Top 50 Emerging Growth Companies award, two-time recipients of the PROFIT 500 award for Fastest Growing Companies and recognized by the Chamber of Commerce as Business of the Year in the Small Business Category. As a six-time recipient of the PROFIT W100 Top Female Entrepreneur award, Shantal was selected into the Ivey KPMG QuantumShift program for Canada’s Top 40 Entrepreneurs and awarded a full scholarship to the Tuck-WBENC Executive Program for women entrepreneurs. In 2019 Shantal was recognized with the YMCA Women of Excellence award for entrepreneurship.
Years in Industry
Years with Stiris
Creativity
Biotech/Pharma
Site Experience
Before Industry I
I’m Really Good At
Hidden Talent
Hero
Vacation Location
Sports Team
Snack Food
Morning/night owl
Specialist Subject
Amanda leads Stiris’ day-to-day operations, contributing to the planning and execution of corporate strategy and serving on the company’s executive team.
In the last 24 years Amanda’s passion for clinical research has driven her to translate science into proven medical treatments. Amanda started her career as a Registered Nurse. Her clinical research experience began as a CRC working in areas like Dermatology, Cardiology, General Medicine, Respiratory and Oncology. She has held Project Management, CRA Management, Global Resourcing and Operations positions throughout her industry career.
Amanda has been an active member of ACRP since 2009, joined the ACRP Canadian Chapter Executive Committee in 2013, was elected Executive Committee Secretary from 2014 to 2016 and a Member at Large until 2017.
Years in Industry
Years with Stiris
Creativity
Biotech/Pharma
Site Experience
Before Industry I
I’m Really Good At
Hidden Talent
Hero
Vacation Location
Sports Team
Snack Food
Morning/night owl
Specialist Subject
Sara leads and directs Stiris’ corporate operations. She serves on the company’s executive team, providing oversight, management and planning of corporate strategy. Sara started her career in the financial sector, working for various Canadian financial institutions. Her clinical research experience began with Stiris as a Clinical Project Admin (CPA). Her openness to learn new skills, and her drive to learn more about the roles within clinical trial management, resulted in her growth within Stiris which included roles as CPA Manager, Quality Assurance, and Managing Director, Corporate Operations. Sara has led and developed an in-house clinical administration team, redeveloped the Quality Management System and CAPA program, and was integral in the launch of a new Entrepreneurial Operating System. Sara’s passion is people and company culture, including training and performance management.
Sara earned her BA in Sociology from the University of Western Ontario.
Years in Industry
Years with Stiris
Creativity
Biotech/Pharma
Site Experience
Before Industry I
I’m Really Good At
Hidden Talent
Hero
Vacation Location
Sports Team
Snack Food
Morning/night owl
Specialist Subject
Experienced biotech executive and entrepreneur with depth of expertise across clinical asset investment strategy, evaluation, financing and execution. Additional leadership experience within R&D, Medical, and strategic corporate functions.
Dr. Price was previously responsible for the strategic and tactical management of all business at Drug Safety Solutions. After a successful 20-year history, Drug Safety Solutions was acquired in June 2017 by Linden Capital Partners. From that date to January 2020, Dr. Price served as the Chief Medical Officer for the global ProPharma Group, a Linden subsidiary.
Over the years Dr. Price has served on multiple corporate boards, including public, private, and not-for-profit.
His board duties have included the Chairman’s role on Compensation and Governance as well as a member’s role on Audit. He has served on boards that report to; TSX, NYSE American, and NASDAQ.
His most recent experience, Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE American: RNN) he served on Compensation, Governance, and Business Development. In his previous role with Sarepta Therapeutics NASDAQ: SRPT, he helped to guide the company transition from $80 million market (2008) to its 2019 market cap of $8.4 billion.
Dr. Price is a clinical trial Medical Monitor and Pharmacovigilance expert. He has years of experience as the head of Safety Management Teams (SMTs), multiple Data Safety Monitoring Boards, as well as protocol development and safety support from FIH to Phase IV clinical trials.
While his therapeutic horizon is broad, it has been dominated by oncology, infectious disease, and rare disease.
Christian Kollmannsberger, MD, FRCPC, is staff medical oncologist at the British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) Vancouver Cancer Centre and Clinical Professor at the University of British Columbia. He graduated from the Technical University in Munich, Germany and received his clinical training in internal medicine, haematology and medical oncology, mainly at University of Tuebingen, Germany.
Dr. Kollmannsberger’s research is focused on genito-urinary malignancies with a special interest in testicular and renal cell cancer. This includes phase I, II and III clinical trials, the development of new therapeutic options and investigation of mechanisms of treatment resistance. Nationally and internationally, he has contributed to numerous trials in the field of renal cell carcinoma and testicular cancer. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals that include the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, Annals of Oncology, the European Journal of Cancer, Cancer and the British Journal of Cancer. He has repeatedly served as faculty for the Annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, and the Annual Meeting of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO).
Currently, Dr. Kollmannsberger serves as chair of the BC Cancer Genitourinary Cancers Tumor Group, the BC Cancer Genitourinary Cancers Systemic Therapy Group, chair for the Genitourinary Clinical Trials Unit at BC Cancer Vancouver Centre, chair for the Canadian Clinical Trials Group Testis Cancer Disease Oriented Group, and member of the Canadian Clinical Trials Group Kidney Cancer Disease Oriented Group.
Experienced Global medical Director/Medical Monitor for oncology, rare disease, nephrology, pulmonology, CNS, Dermatology, hematology, GIT, DM, cardiovascular and hematology clinical trials from Phase I to III.
Dr. Haytham (Sam) Elgammal has been internationally trained, educated and practiced on 3 different continents. Now making his roots in Florida, USA, he has had the privilege to work in key research institutions and have managed many different positions and practiced in many different disease areas.
He has experience working in an Emergency Room setting, as an internist and as a Clinical Research Fellow in Surgical oncology. Most recently, he has provided inpatient care for immunological and cancer patients. Dr. Elgammal first became involved in Clinical Trials, when working as an intern. Now, his experience has taken him to become a Medial Director, working on many clinical trials as the main Medical Monitor which include devices, CNS and many Immuno-Oncology studies.
Dr. Tracy Sexton is a Radiation Oncologist at the London Regional Cancer Program and has specialized in the treatment of breast, prostate and pediatric cancers since 2007. She is also an Associate Professor at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Western Ontario.
Dr. Sexton is actively involved in clinical trial research and education and was the Program Director of the Radiation Oncology Residency Program for 10 years. Her passion is survivorship and as the SouthWest Ontario lead for the Breast Cancer Survivorship Program, she helped create educational materials on follow up and long-term side effects for family physicians and patients that are now used throughout the province.
As a 15-year breast cancer survivor, Dr. Sexton has committed her professional and personal life to raising awareness of breast cancer and improving the lives of breast cancer patients after treatment. She is an avid dragonboater and has been a member of Rowbust, London Breast Cancer Survivor Dragonboat racing team, since 2010. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends and traveling the world.
Carrie Hamilton is the Senior Director of Clinical Science. In her role, she works with Sponsors on the development of their programs to provide insights on feasibility and placement of different studies. She is also responsible for providing the necessary guidance and training to the Stiris family with new clinical trends, newly discovered drug classes, and emerging therapeutic areas.
She has gained extensive experience during her 30+ year career, where she has been involved in many aspects of clinical research, from the early stages of drug development of clinical programs, to launching products on the market. Prior to Stiris, Carrie worked at large pharmaceutical companies, including over 20 years at Hoffmann-La Roche, during which time she was directly involved in the development of over 65 new molecular entities, involving over 200 Phase I to IV clinical trials.
Carrie has been instrumental with the success of large clinical programs, representing all country operations on global management teams, while being hands-on with the operations in North America. She has a proven success record of meeting and exceeding recruitment targets and timelines through leading an efficient team. In addition to being able to guide a highly effective team, she attributes her success to her ability to collaborate effectively with sites, establishing excellent relationships with Key Opinion Leaders and Investigators, and having meaningful, scientific discussions with participating sites during early feasibility.
Her therapeutic experience is extensive; however, it has been focused mainly on Oncology (including many years in Hematology), Neurology, and Infectious Diseases.
Yuri Zaretsky, M.D. graduated from 2nd Moscow State Medical University, Russia in 1987. He completed residency in abdominal surgery, also residency in anesthesiology, resuscitation, and intensive care. Following his post-graduate work, he served at the Vilnius University Hospital, Vilnius, Lithuania as a senior anesthesiologist/resuscitation specialist and director of pain management clinic.
Dr. Zaretsky’s professional career in clinical trials began as a primary investigator where his interest in the design, conduct of clinical trials and analysis of data evolved. Dr. Zaretsky has more than 20 years clinical trials experience in a variety of therapeutic areas. In 2004, he established ZM CRO GROUP, a medical affairs and drug safety group of CROs, which over the years, has evolved into a respected force in the CRO field.
Dr. Zaretsky’s continuing research interests lie in drug safety, medical monitoring, medical review, and data management. Therapeutic fields included but not limited to Oncology, Cardiovascular, Nephrology/Urology, Respiratory, Psychiatric, Metabolic, Immunology, Musculoskeletal, Pain Management, Genetic disorder. He has strong knowledge of ICH / GCP & GVP guidelines, NMPА (former CFDA), Roszdravnadzor, FDA, Health Canada, and EMA regulations.
Fernando Lasso De La Vega is our Senior Director, Clinical Operations. Within his role Fernando provides key strategic insights, protocol considerations and therapeutic expertise to medical advisors, sponsors and sites. Fernando’s experience, both as a Medical Doctor and within the Pharmaceutical Industry, allows him to navigate and guide stakeholders in making key decisions to support programs and protocols.
As a Medical Doctor, Dr. Lasso de la Vega was an attending physician at several tertiary hospitals in Mexico City, prior to transitioning over to the pharmaceutical industry. He has held various roles across 2 large pharmaceutical companies, most recently at Roche/Genentech, where he managed, led teams and provided oversight to over 150 clinical trials, from phase I to phase IV.
Dr. Lasso de la Vega’s strong Scientific, Medical and Operational expertise, coupled with his keen business acumen has allowed him to navigate complex challenges and implement strategic solutions to support stakeholders in making key decisions that have driven the advancement of their programs and portfolios. He is recognized by his colleagues and peers for his strategic thinking and ability to quickly assess situations to identify issues and lead to risk mitigating strategies and solutions.
His experience providing oversight and management spans across the clinical trial lifecycle, he has extensive experience supporting studies early on during feasibility and through start-up, conduct and close-out while operationally supporting and guiding teams and managing key strategic conversations with KOLs, sites and global study team leaders. While he has worked directly within both Latin America and North America, he has experience supporting clinical trials globally providing him with an understanding of both local requirements and challenges but also the global requirements and challenges that impact sponsors, sites and studies.
As a senior leader at Roche/Genentech, Dr. Lasso de la Vega led the implementation of initiatives at a departmental and company wide level, that resulted in the streamlining of several operational processes across North America.
Dr. Lasso de la Vega has extensive therapeutic experience but was instrumental in providing oversight and support to the Oncology portfolio, but also extends to Rare Disease, Neurology, Psychiatry, Ophthalmology, and Metabolism.
Shantal is the founder of Stiris Research. Before starting Stiris, Shantal was a Director at a mid-sized CRO where she led teams in global and North American clinical trials. Prior to that, Shantal held positions at both Hoffmann-La Roche and Janssen Ortho Inc. (Johnson & Johnson group of families). Shantal began her career as a Study Coordinator, working with treatment resistant schizophrenic patients.
Shantal and Stiris are the recipients of the PROFIT Top 50 Emerging Growth Companies award, two-time recipients of the PROFIT 500 award for Fastest Growing Companies and recognized by the Chamber of Commerce as Business of the Year in the Small Business Category. As a six-time recipient of the PROFIT W100 Top Female Entrepreneur award, Shantal was selected into the Ivey KPMG QuantumShift program for Canada’s Top 40 Entrepreneurs and awarded a full scholarship to the Tuck-WBENC Executive Program for women entrepreneurs. In 2019 Shantal was recognized with the YMCA Women of Excellence award for entrepreneurship.
Years in Industry
Years with Stiris
Creativity
Biotech/Pharma
Site Experience
Before Industry I
I’m Really Good At
Hidden Talent
Hero
Vacation Location
Sports Team
Snack Food
Morning/night owl
Specialist Subject
Amanda leads Stiris’ day-to-day operations, contributing to the planning and execution of corporate strategy and serving on the company’s executive team.
In the last 24 years Amanda’s passion for clinical research has driven her to translate science into proven medical treatments. Amanda started her career as a Registered Nurse. Her clinical research experience began as a CRC working in areas like Dermatology, Cardiology, General Medicine, Respiratory and Oncology. She has held Project Management, CRA Management, Global Resourcing and Operations positions throughout her industry career.
Amanda has been an active member of ACRP since 2009, joined the ACRP Canadian Chapter Executive Committee in 2013, was elected Executive Committee Secretary from 2014 to 2016 and a Member at Large until 2017.
Years in Industry
Years with Stiris
Creativity
Biotech/Pharma
Site Experience
Before Industry I
I’m Really Good At
Hidden Talent
Hero
Vacation Location
Sports Team
Snack Food
Morning/night owl
Specialist Subject
Sara leads and directs Stiris’ corporate operations. She serves on the company’s executive team, providing oversight, management and planning of corporate strategy. Sara started her career in the financial sector, working for various Canadian financial institutions. Her clinical research experience began with Stiris as a Clinical Project Admin (CPA). Her openness to learn new skills, and her drive to learn more about the roles within clinical trial management, resulted in her growth within Stiris which included roles as CPA Manager, Quality Assurance, and Managing Director, Corporate Operations. Sara has led and developed an in-house clinical administration team, redeveloped the Quality Management System and CAPA program, and was integral in the launch of a new Entrepreneurial Operating System. Sara’s passion is people and company culture, including training and performance management.
Sara earned her BA in Sociology from the University of Western Ontario.
Years in Industry
Years with Stiris
Creativity
Biotech/Pharma
Site Experience
Before Industry I
I’m Really Good At
Hidden Talent
Hero
Vacation Location
Sports Team
Snack Food
Morning/night owl
Specialist Subject
Carrie Hamilton is the Senior Director of Clinical Science. In her role, she works with Sponsors on the development of their programs to provide insights on feasibility and placement of different studies. She is also responsible for providing the necessary guidance and training to the Stiris family with new clinical trends, newly discovered drug classes, and emerging therapeutic areas.
She has gained extensive experience during her 30+ year career, where she has been involved in many aspects of clinical research, from the early stages of drug development of clinical programs, to launching products on the market. Prior to Stiris, Carrie worked at large pharmaceutical companies, including over 20 years at Hoffmann-La Roche, during which time she was directly involved in the development of over 65 new molecular entities, involving over 200 Phase I to IV clinical trials.
Carrie has been instrumental with the success of large clinical programs, representing all country operations on global management teams, while being hands-on with the operations in North America. She has a proven success record of meeting and exceeding recruitment targets and timelines through leading an efficient team. In addition to being able to guide a highly effective team, she attributes her success to her ability to collaborate effectively with sites, establishing excellent relationships with Key Opinion Leaders and Investigators, and having meaningful, scientific discussions with participating sites during early feasibility.
Her therapeutic experience is extensive; however, it has been focused mainly on Oncology (including many years in Hematology), Neurology, and Infectious Diseases.
Fernando Lasso De La Vega is our Senior Director, Clinical Operations. Within his role Fernando provides key strategic insights, protocol considerations and therapeutic expertise to medical advisors, sponsors and sites. Fernando’s experience, both as a Medical Doctor and within the Pharmaceutical Industry, allows him to navigate and guide stakeholders in making key decisions to support programs and protocols.
As a Medical Doctor, Dr. Lasso de la Vega was an attending physician at several tertiary hospitals in Mexico City, prior to transitioning over to the pharmaceutical industry. He has held various roles across 2 large pharmaceutical companies, most recently at Roche/Genentech, where he managed, led teams and provided oversight to over 150 clinical trials, from phase I to phase IV.
Dr. Lasso de la Vega’s strong Scientific, Medical and Operational expertise, coupled with his keen business acumen has allowed him to navigate complex challenges and implement strategic solutions to support stakeholders in making key decisions that have driven the advancement of their programs and portfolios. He is recognized by his colleagues and peers for his strategic thinking and ability to quickly assess situations to identify issues and lead to risk mitigating strategies and solutions.
His experience providing oversight and management spans across the clinical trial lifecycle, he has extensive experience supporting studies early on during feasibility and through start-up, conduct and close-out while operationally supporting and guiding teams and managing key strategic conversations with KOLs, sites and global study team leaders. While he has worked directly within both Latin America and North America, he has experience supporting clinical trials globally providing him with an understanding of both local requirements and challenges but also the global requirements and challenges that impact sponsors, sites and studies.
As a senior leader at Roche/Genentech, Dr. Lasso de la Vega led the implementation of initiatives at a departmental and company wide level, that resulted in the streamlining of several operational processes across North America.
Dr. Lasso de la Vega has extensive therapeutic experience but was instrumental in providing oversight and support to the Oncology portfolio, but also extends to Rare Disease, Neurology, Psychiatry, Ophthalmology, and Metabolism.