FemSTEM 2025 Pitch Competition

Nayana Thalanki Anantha, MHSc. Clinical engineering, is a seasoned product manager in med-tech and specializes in translating medical devices from bench to bedside. She is driven by medical technology that is backed by exciting science and those that are able to solve challenges in healthcare with novel product designs. She is a strong advocate of user-centric product design so as to maximize clinical adoption and market success. With a background in engineering and research, she has the expertise required to take an innovation from concept to regulatory market approval in the US and Canada, including the necessary clinical testing.

After completing her Masters in Clinical engineering from University of Toronto, Nayana gained experience in developing novel access technologies for non-verbal children at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Hospital. Following which she ventured into industry with medical wearable technologies where she led product design and regulatory strategy for Health Canada and FDA approval. She returned to research at UHN and was one of the inventors of a novel imaging platform to be used during breast conserving surgeries that was successfully acquired by a German/Japanese company. Through this journey, she gained the invaluable experience of fulfilling multiple roles in start-up environments. She has also worked on projects for WHO in technical evaluation of medical equipment for the Covid emergency response.

Nayana is the founder and CTO of Cirayu Innovations working on bringing a novel method for cervical cancer detection to market.

Dr. Myrna Francis is President, Mfran Enterprises Inc., serving as a trusted advisor to public sector, multi-national technology companies and start-ups on health IT, IT business and product growth strategies, go-to-market approach, development and commercialization of internet 2.0 digital health innovation and governance.

With more than 25 years of experience in the technology and healthcare industries, she has operated across Canada, the United States and Europe. She has held numerous executive level roles with companies such as CGI, IBM, CSC Healthcare and was President and CEO of Canada Health Infoway. In addition to her private sector experience, Dr. Francis has held executive positions in the provincial government related to health policy and services.

Dr. Francis currently sits on the Board of Directors, Audit and Investment Committees of Medavie Inc. and Blue Cross Life Inc. She has previously served on the boards of organizations across multiple industry sectors including – Covalon Technologies Inc.(medical technology), Allstate Canada (insurance), RxCanada (retail pharmacy), Cedara Software Corp.(medical imaging), Medworxx (health IT), Excelerate Inc.(venture fund), George Brown College and OCAD University as well as various health IT associations.

Dr. Francis is also an advisor to Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District, Health Ventures Group, an incubator for start-up health IT companies and H2i.

Dr. Francis received her Ph.D. in Medical Sciences from McMaster University and obtained her ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

With her diverse experience in the public and private sectors internationally, she brings a unique and comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented to companies today.

Ester Carrasco is the Head of Client Services at Springborne Life Sciences, a leading compliance service provider supporting early to mid-stage Digital Health and Medical Device companies. At Springborne, she specializes in supporting these companies navigate the complexities of their compliance journey to enable rapid commercialization of innovative healthcare products.

Her responsibilities include regulatory strategy, compliance planning, and leading regulatory filings including FDA submissions.

Ester completed her MEng in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto.

Wendy is one of the founders of Ripple Therapeutics following its spin out from Interface Biologics in 2020. ipple’s core technology, Epidel™, is founded on a discovery that drugs can be designed to deliver themselves without the need for polymers or excipients. The Company has successfully transitioned from an early preclinical to a clinical stage company raising over $25M in Seed and Series A funding.

Wendy has been leading teams in the development of local drug delivery products for over 20 years. Prior to returning to Canada in 2016 to join Interface Biologics, Wendy led the Clinical Program for the development of a drug-eluting, self-expanding, biodegradable scaffold at 480 Biomedical in Boston (Founders, Bob Langer and George Whitesides).
Wendy began her industry career at Boston Scientific in the Corporate R&D group. At Boston Scientific her work spanned developing combination products to deliver angiogenic biological agents to leading Regulatory Submission Strategies for approval of Class III combination products. Wendy is an inventor of over 35 patents in the local drug delivery field.

Wendy received her PhD in Biomaterials from the University of Toronto and began developing her career interest in local drug delivery at Caltech during her post-doctoral fellowship. During her post-doc, Wendy also discovered yoga which led her to become a certified yoga instructor. Wendy has shared her love of yoga through teaching her R&D communities along the way.