Dr. Avtar Dhillon, Executive Chairman, has been appointed President of Emerald. Chris Wagner has stepped down as CEO.
“Emerald’s board of directors thanks Chris for his numerous contributions during this period of rapid growth and wishes him well in his future endeavours,” said Jim Heppell, a director of Emerald. “Emerald has now laid the groundwork for very rapid future growth. As Executive Chairman, Dr. Dhillon has been intimately involved in setting the company’s strategy and overseeing its operations. Under his experienced stewardship, we expect Emerald to rapidly advance its differentiated business plan.”
Dr. Avtar Dhillon said, “Our plan is to build on the momentum of, and accelerate, our foray into the world cannabis arena and leverage our asset base to maximize our opportunities not only in Canada, but globally. Our goal is to be a preeminent player on the global stage, with science-backed innovative cannabinoid products. As such, we are finalizing our expansive relationship with the Factors Group, which, when complete, is expected to provide industrial-scale extraction, encapsulation, packaging, and distribution capability. We intend to feed this processing capability with supply from our Pure Sunfarms joint venture, our Quebec facility, and hemp to be obtained through our supply agreement.”
Dr. Dhillon is a life sciences entrepreneur with more than 35 years of experience. He is CEO of Emerald Health Sciences, a major shareholder of the company, and serves as a board member and chairman of several life science companies. He is also Chairman of the Cannabis Canada Council. As a founder/co-founder of many life science companies, he has raised more than $1B in public and private financing. As President and CEO of Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Dr. Dhillon led a turnaround with multiple successful financing and licensing deals with Merck, Wyeth (now Pfizer) and Roche. Before joining Inovio, he was Vice President of MDS Capital Corp. (now Lumira Capital Corp.). Prior to his business career, Dr. Dhillon practiced family medicine. He has a BSc (Honours) in Human Physiology and an MD from the University of British Columbia.
Emerald also announces the departure of Paul Dillman as Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing of the company, effective as of November 22, 2018.
For more information:
Emerald Health Therapeutics
emeraldhealth.ca