Activating Oncolytic Immunotherapies

Steve Potts, PhD, MBA (Founder & CEO) leads OncoMyx. Steve has worked in the biopharma industry since 1999 and has had experience in a wide range of areas, including product development, sales, marketing, and general management. He has a proven track record of success, with his last three companies all with significant shareholder returns. He was Vice President of Medical Affairs at Ignyta, which was acquired by Roche for $1.7B, and he led the global operation of the testing of 30,000 patients in an oncology basket trial for entrectinib in 15 countries. The molecule was the first in industry to receive breakthrough designation equivalents in USA, Europe, and Japan. Prior to Ignyta, he bootstrapped his first company as founding CEO, Flagship Biosciences, to 75 employees and an exit for his investors. He was General Manager Life Sciences at Aperio, which exited to Danaher for $180M. He also built the Bioinformatics Department for a Fortune 500 Company, Quest Diagnostics, which subsequently delivered $1B of annual revenue. He earned a BS in Physics from Wheaton College, Illinois and PhD in Biological Engineering and MBA from the University of California Davis.

Grant McFadden, PhD (Founder, Research Advisor & Director) advises the company on the myxoma virus (MYXV) platform. Grant is one of the top global leaders in oncolytic viruses with a specialization in pox viruses, including myxoma. He was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2004, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2005 and the American Academy of Microbiology in 2007. Dr. McFadden is currently a Professor at Arizona State University and is the Director of the Biodesign Center for Immunotherapy, Vaccines, and Virotherapy (B-CIVV). He is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal PLoS Pathogens, a Senior Editor at Journal of Molecular Therapy – Oncolytics and was the President of the American Society for Virology 2015-16. Grant’s lab studies how poxviruses that cause immunosuppression interact with the host immune system. The McFadden lab pioneered the field of viral immune subversion (also called “anti-immunology”) and is credited with the discovery of a wide spectrum of virus-derived inhibitors of the immune system. His lab also investigates host-virus tropism, and the deployment of poxviruses for oncolytic virotherapy for the treatment of cancer, particularly with a rabbit-specific poxvirus called myxoma virus (MYXV). Grant has published over 340 scientific papers and reviews. He earned a BSc and PhD in Biochemistry from McGill University.

Executive Director, BIVF

Kanad joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund from Merck (MSD) where he was Director, Business Development and Licensing in their West Coast Innovation Hub. He led efforts in Immuno-Oncology, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases and Ophthalmology in the preclinical space up to human proof of concept. Kanad started his career at Genentech as a post-doctoral fellow, then going to KAI Pharmaceuticals as a medicinal chemist. There he was an inventor of Parsabiv, approved in 2017 for the treatment of Secondary Hyperparathyroidism. After KAI, Kanad worked at Stanford University’s SPARK program, an academic accelerator designed to take basic science discoveries and bring them to fundable assets. He earned a BS in Chemistry from University of California, Berkeley and PhD in Chemistry from University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Principal, Delos Capital

Tim Xiao, CFA, FRM, is a Principal at Delos Capital since its inception in 2014 and has over 12 years’ experience in investment banking and life sciences investment. Tim started his career as an investment banker at China International Capital, and later joined Goldman Sachs where he completed a series of industry-defining transactions with total deal value over US $4 billion. Tim serves as a Board member for Liposeuticals, Curatia Medical, Luqa Pharmaceuticals, Thermalin Inc. and as a Board Observer for Allecra Therapeutics, Intrinsic Therapeutics and Atia Vision. Tim is a CFA^® charterholder.

Partner, Xeraya Capital

Jason is a Partner at Xeraya Capital, a global venture capital firm that invests in the life sciences sector. From 2011 to 2016, Jason was a director in the corporate finance advisory arm of Deloitte & Touche LLP. Prior to that, he was an independent strategy consultant, and an investment manager at Inventages Venture Capital Investment, Inc., an investment arm of Nestle S.A. specializing in the health care and life sciences sectors. Jason was an associate in Merlin Biosciences Fund, L.P., a venture capital firm specializing in life science companies, and a management consultant in PA Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm. Jason started his career at Eli Lilly and Company as a biologist. He earned a BS in Anatomy and MS in Immunology from the University of Birmingham.

Tobias is the Head of the Oncology and Cellular Immunology Laboratory at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. He is a leading expert in tumor immunology with a strong focus on the role of the innate immune system during tumor development, progression and cancer immunotherapy.

Neil is President and CEO of PDI Therapeutics and Senior Vice President of COI Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Gibson has more than 30 years of drug development experience and has been involved in the successful discovery, development and commercialization of four approved oncology drugs (including temozolomide, sorafenib, erlotnib, and crizotinib). Dr Gibson’s extensive oncology experience includes being CSO of Pfizer Oncology Research Unit, CSO of Regulus Therapeutics and CSO of OSI Pharmaceuticals.  Dr. Gibson also serves on the board of TCR2, a new public company focused on T-cell therapies.

Grant is founder, research advisor, and director at OncoMyx. He is one of the top global leaders in oncolytic viruses with a specialization in pox viruses, including myxoma. The McFadden lab pioneered the field of viral immune subversion (also called “anti-immunology”) and is credited with the discovery of a wide spectrum of virus-derived inhibitors of the immune system.

Ronan is Senior Vice President of Research and Translational Sciences at Akrevia Therapeutics. Prior to Akrevia, Ronan served as Executive Director, Oncology Discovery at Merck Research Laboratories. In this role he led the oncology discovery program at Merck with a particular emphasis on approaches to enable and enhance immune-modulatory therapies in cancer. Earlier at Merck, he led target identification and validation for oncology and generated an early-discovery pipeline including both biologics and small-molecule programs. He has helped to bring multiple small-molecule and biologics programs into clinical development during his time in industry. His academic career included undergraduate and graduate work in Canada followed by post-doctoral work at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). In Dr. Ron DePinho’s laboratory at DFCI, he focused on genetically engineered mouse models of cancer and novel approaches to target discovery.

Dominic has over 25 years of experience in drug research and development and the discipline of Translational Medicine. He has been an executive leader at Chugai Biopharmaceuticals USA, where he was Vice President of Exploratory Research; at Pfizer where he served as head of Translational Medicine for the Oncology division; and at Amgen where he was Executive Director of Medical Sciences and head of Biomarkers and Diagnostics. A former professor of Medicine and Immunology at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine and Howard Hughes postdoctoral fellow at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, he also served on several national and international cancer biomarker development bodies.