Pierre Bou-Mansour, P. Eng. | COO, Novamind

Pierre has spent his entire career managing large and complex healthcare organizations. Prior to Novamind, Pierre spent eight years at LifeLabs, serving as the COO, where he successfully led the integration of two acquired competitors and helped grow LifeLabs into one of the largest medical service companies in Canada with approximately $1 billion in annualized revenue. Now he turns his focus to scaling Novamind’s clinics and clinical research sites.

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How is your background and past experience informing your current role? 

Novamind is on a mission to provide affordable access to medically safe, evidence-based mental health treatments. Our approach to growth also involves acquiring proven clinics. Drawing from my past career experience, we’ll bring proven processes that will transform the clinics we acquire and quickly standardize treatment and operations. That way, when a new clinic opens, we’ll be able to immediately deliver the same quality of care that we offer at all of our clinics.

Novamind has announced significant expansion plans. Can you discuss the details?   

We’re already ahead of schedule, by about 6 months. Novamind recently announced (May, 2021) that we’re doubling in size to eight locations – all organic growth. We’re also leveraging Novamind’s reputation and our expertise operating regulated psychiatry clinics to pursue acquisition opportunities across the U.S.

How does Novamind differ from established competition in the market?

Novamind is unique in several ways. Above all, we are not a drug developer. Instead, we’re focused on delivering treatment and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. That’s why we’re focused on clinics and clinical research sites for psychedelic medicine, which already supports thousands of clients with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and other treatments. We had over 20,000 clinic visits in 2020 alone.
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Our clinical research business (Cedar Clinical Research or CCR) is unique and provides an important pillar from which we can build a leading position in this sector. CCR already facilitates research with universities and clinical trials for big pharma including Merck, Janssen, Otsuka and others. What we learn from research influences how we implement various psychedelic treatment protocols in our clinics. The research gives Novamind unrivalled experience to deliver new treatments in a clinical setting.

How do you plan to ensure quality and consistency while meeting your significant scaling plans?

My background as an executive in healthcare has been focused on rapid expansion within a regulated industry. Quality and consistency are everything in a clinical operation. The way forward is to create strong standard operating procedures for every form of care that we offer, and to hire and train the very best clinicians. That’s how we ensure high quality care and patient safety at every touchpoint.

Can you describe the physical environment at your clinics?  

The first thing patients experience is a safe and welcoming environment. That’s invaluable. We’re currently enhancing the design of our clinics with a renowned design firm to tailor the physical environment around the internal needs of the patients and staff who enter. Even before they meet their therapist, they are reassured by the environment itself.
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Our patients are supported by clinicians who are focused solely on their well-being. The care and attention to detail is why our Utah clinics are operating at capacity. Patients stay with us.

What is Novamind’s ultimate goal?

There are tremendous unmet mental health needs in society. Simply put, our goal is to offer affordable mental health services and safe, legal access to psychedelic medicine to more people. We want to set a new standard of mental healthcare, and be the network that patients prefer—to become a trusted partner for innovative mental healthcare.