Dr. Thompson has provided leadership to various organizations within the biotechnology sector for more than 20 years. Prior to his role with Oncolytics, he held a number of senior executive positions with SYNSORB Biotech from 1994 to 1999. From 1983 to 1994, Dr. Thompson worked in a senior role at The Alberta Research Council. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
Doug Ball, CA
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Ball is a senior executive with more than 25 years of experience in accounting, finance and developing and implementing effective business strategies. He is responsible for the financial affairs of Oncolytics, and provides financial and commercial input into the strategic direction of the company. Prior to joining Oncolytics, Mr. Ball held a variety of senior positions with organizations including SYNSORB Biotech, Canadian Airlines and Canadian Regional Airlines, Time Air and the Nu-West Group.
Matt Coffey, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
A co-founder of Oncolytics Biotech Inc., Dr. Coffey’s current responsibilities include directing the research and development efforts, and integrating these efforts into an effective clinical trial program and intellectual property position for the Company. Prior to joining Oncolytics, Dr. Coffey completed his doctorate degree in oncology at the University of Calgary with a focus on the oncolytic capabilities of the reovirus. The results of his research have been published in several respected scientific journals, including Science, Human Gene Therapy, and The EMBO Journal.
George Gill, M.D.
Senior Vice President, Clinical and Regulatory Affairs
George M. Gill, MD, has more than 30 years of senior-level experience in clinical research and regulatory affairs, and has supported the advancement of more than 20 products - including 11 cancer products - through the regulatory approval process in the United States, Canada and Europe. Prior to joining Oncolytics, Dr. Gill held top positions with several major pharmaceutical companies including ICI Pharmaceuticals (now AstraZeneca), The Bristol-Myers Company (now Bristol-Myers Squibb) and Hoffman-La Roche. Dr. Gill holds a B.Sc. (chemistry) from DickinsonCollege in Pennsylvania and an MD from the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Karl Mettinger, M.D., Ph.D
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Mettinger has been involved in clinical and regulatory affairs with various pharmaceutical companies since 1985. Prior to joining Oncolytics, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer with SuperGen Inc. Prior to that, he was Executive Director, Clinical Research at IVAX/Baker Norton, which is the new drug subsidiary of IVAX Corporation. He began his career in the industry with KABI in Sweden. Dr. Mettinger holds an MD from the University of Lund in Sweden and a PhD (hematology/stroke) from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
Mary Ann Dillahunty, JD, MBA
Vice President, Intellectual Property
Ms. Dillahunty's career in the biopharmaceutical industry spans several decades and her experience ranges from patent portfolio development and prosecution to regulatory affairs consulting, business development and research science. Her responsibilities at Oncolytics include maximizing Oncolytics' patent potential for REOLYSIN® while offering senior level counsel to the Company on its strategic development.
Oncolytics Biotech Inc. focuses on the discovery and development of pharmaceutical products for the treatment of a wide variety of human cancers. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the Company was formed in 1998 to explore the oncolytic capability of the reovirus, a virus that preferentially replicates in cells with an activated Ras pathway, one of the most common family of genetic defects leading to cancer.
REOLYSIN® OVERVIEW
vREOLYSIN can kill up to two-thirds of all human cancer cells
vMore than 175 patients treated to date in the U.S., Canada, U.K.
v10 Phase I/II or Phase II human clinical trials treating or recruiting patients in the U.S. and the U.K.
vStrong and consistent safety and efficacy data from numerous preclinical and clinical studies
vStrong anticipated news flow in 2008/2009
vCombination therapy with radiation and chemotherapy appears to be synergistic, with increased response rates
vStrong IP portfolio, with more than 175 patents issued worldwide, including 27 U.S. patents
vManufacturing scaled up to 40-litre level, with additional increases in scale to 100-litre being investigated
Oncolytics' technologies are based on discoveries arising from research conducted at the University of Calgary. Dr. Matt Coffey, Chief Scientific Officer for Oncolytics, was instrumental in these discoveries and continues to play a pivotal role in the product development process.
REOLYSIN, the company's proprietary formulation of the human reovirus, has been demonstrated to replicate specifically in tumour cells bearing an activated Ras pathway. Activating mutations of Ras and upstream elements of Ras may play a role in greater than two thirds of all human cancers. REOLYSIN may represent a novel treatment for Ras activated tumour cells and some cellular proliferative disorders.
Reovirus, an acronym for Respiratory Enteric Orphan virus, is generally believed to inhabit the respiratory and bowel systems in humans. Reovirus is found naturally in sewage and water supplies. By age 12, half of all children show evidence of reovirus exposure and by adulthood, most people have been exposed. However, the disease is non-pathogenic, meaning there are typically no symptoms from infections. The link to its cancer-killing ability was established after the reovirus was discovered to reproduce well in various cancer cell lines.
Tumours bearing an activated Ras pathway are deficient in their ability to activate the anti-viral response mediated by the host cellular protein, PKR. Since PKR is responsible for preventing reovirus replication, tumour cells lacking the activity of PKR are susceptible to reovirus replication. As normal cells do not possess Ras activations, these cells are able to stop reovirus infection through normal PKR activity. In tumour cells with an activated Ras pathway, reovirus is able to freely replicate and eventually kill the host tumour cells. As cell death occurs, progeny virus particles are then free to infect surrounding cancer cells. This cycle of infection, replication and cell death is believed to be repeated until there are no longer any tumour cells carrying an activated Ras pathway available.
More recently, Oncolytics has discovered that tumour antigens generated by this viral oncolysis may educate the immune system to recognize and kill tumour cells.
The activation of the Ras pathway can be mimicked in non-cancerous cells by treating these cells with the chemical 2-aminopurine (2-AP) which prevents the activation of PKR.
Oncolytics' clinical program includes human trials using REOLYSIN alone and in combination with radiation and chemotherapy.
Please click here to view the clinical trial program for REOLYSIN.
Clinical Trial Chart
Clinical Trial Program 2008
Intellectual Property
Oncolytics has been granted more than 175 patents, including 27 U.S. patents and 8 Canadian patents covering REOLYSIN technology and modified herpes and adenoviruses.
Approximately 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in 2008, and in the same year more than half a million are expected to die of cancer. In the U.S., cancer accounts for one of every four deaths, second only to cardiovascular disease. The relative lifetime risk of a male developing cancer is 1 in 2, while for women, the risk is 1 in 3.
The costs of these diseases are also significant. In the United States, the National Institutes of Health estimate that the overall annual cost for cancer in 2007 was $219.2 billion, of which $89 billion could be attributed to direct patient costs.
