Mr. David J. Main
President & CEO
Mr. Main has over 17 years experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and brings a demonstrated ability to grow and finance pharmaceutical development companies. Mr. Main was formerly the President and CEO of INEX Pharmaceuticals Corp. from July 1999 until June 2005. From September 1996 until his appointment as CEO, he was the Company's Vice President, Corporate Development. While President and CEO, Mr. Main led the transformation of INEX from a research driven to a product focused biopharmaceutical company, advancing product development to the NDA stage and securing several significant pharmaceutical partnerships and over $100 million in equity financings. Prior to joining INEX, Mr. Main was a Vice President at QLT Inc. of Vancouver. Mr. Main was formerly a licensed pharmacist at the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, B.C. He holds a B.Sc. (Pharmacy) and an MBA from the University of British Columbia (UBC). In 2002, Mr. Main served as the Chair of LifeSciences BC (formerly BC Biotech), an industry trade association, and continued as a Director afterwards. He currently serves on a number of private and not-for-profit Boards.
Dr. Thomas MacRury, Ph.D.
EVP & Chief Operating Officer
Dr. MacRury has over 30 years experience in the biopharmaceutical and chemical industry and brings a demonstrated ability to lead and manage large R&D teams and industrial partners. Dr. MacRury was formerly the Senior Vice President, Operations at INEX Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for early clinical strategy (Phase I/II), CMC aspects of all INEX products in preclinical and clinical development, business development, technology development, intellectual property, and marketing activities. Dr. MacRury developed full GMP processes, including passing FDA audits, for the manufacturing and release of products and played a key role in the joint development programs with partners. Prior to joining INEX, Dr. MacRury was Senior Vice President and CTO at Pitman Moore where he was responsible for worldwide R&D activities including research, product development, registration and support, process development, quality assurance (GLP,GMP), and government affairs. Dr. MacRury directed technical staff of over 350 scientists with major R&D facilities in the United States, England, Australia, and New Zealand. He was also responsible for R&D investment, intellectual property, technology acquisition, and technical strategic planning. Dr. MacRury held previous technical and management positions at Union Carbide and International Minerals Corp and obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from UBC.
Dr. David Chernoff, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer
David combines the perspective of a practicing clinician with subspeciality training in rheumatology and infectious diseases with decades of biopharma industry experience. David trained in internal medicine at UCSF and was Assistant Chief of Medicine. From 1990-2000, he was Medical Director of Chiron Diagnostics, playing a pivotal role in the development of assays for HIV, HCV, HBV, and CMV. He then moved to Elan as VP of Corporate Technology, where he led the evaluation of a broad range of in-licensing opportunities. He recently spent two years as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and one year as an operating partner at the venture firm TPG, where he was actively involved in due diligence and in incubating new companies. David has been the acting Chief Medical Officer of several startup biotech companies including XDX, CardioDx, Replidyne, Tethys Biosciences, Neuromolecular Pharmaceuticals. David received a B.S. in Biology from Yale, an M.D. from New York University, and his medical training in internal medicine, rheumatology, and infectious disease at UCSF. He has lectured broadly and published dozens of peer-reviewed articles.
Dr. Gerald Krystal, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Gerald Krystal is an internationally renowned scientist in the field of immune and hemopoietic cell signal transduction. In 1996, he discovered, molecularly cloned and patented the enzyme SH2-containing inositol 5'- phosphatase (SHIP), a master regulator that controls the activity of immune cells. This protein is found only in hemopoietic cells and Dr. Krystal has since shown that SHIP regulates multiple signaling cascades involved in cell proliferation, survival and immune cell activation. Dr. Krystal is recognized as the world's foremost authority on SHIP.
Studies in his and collaborators laboratories have implicated SHIP in numerous disease states, including allergies, leukemias and lymphomas and chronic inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and inflammatory bowel disease. Dr. Krystal has served as a consultant for a number of biotechnology firms and is a recipient of the prestigious Terry Fox Research Scientist award from the National Cancer Institute of Canada.
Dr. Ron MacFarland, Ph.D.
Senior Director, Preclinical Development
Ron has over 12 years industry experience and a track record of success in the development of therapeutics in the small pharmaceutical company setting. Ron's core areas of expertise are in preclinical development and clinical pharmacology. Ron joined Aquinox in January, 2008 after nearly 10 years at AnorMED, where he held the position of Director of Pharmacology and Toxicology. While at AnorMED, Ron was responsible for the nonclinical development and clinical pharmacology study design for AMD3100, a CXCR4 chemokine receptor inhibitor for stem cell mobilization in cancer. He remained at AnorMED following its acquisition by Genzyme to assist in completion of the marketing application for AMD3100. Prior to joining AnorMED, Ron was a member of the pharmaceutical development group at SUGEN, where he worked on the discovery and development of small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitors for cancer. Ron received a B.A. in Biology from Vassar, an M.S. in Toxicology from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Washington, before completing post-doctoral work at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Dallas, and Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan. He has authored 16 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, is an inventor on 2 patents, and is a full member of the Society of Toxicology.
Dr. David Llewellyn, Ph.D.
Director, Business Operations
David joined Aquinox in July 2007 as Manager, Business Operations and was promoted to Director in January of 2008. Responsible for the company's Business Development and Project Management activities, David has over 5 years of experience in the Life Sciences industry. Prior to joining Aquinox, David was the Manager of Business Development at StemCell Technologies Inc. where he was involved in the negotiation of several key company agreements. Before becoming involved in Business Development, David worked at MethylGene as a Senior Medicinal Chemist leading a small research group that designed and developed DNA Methyltransferase and Kinase inhibitors. David has a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from McGill University and an MBA in Strategic Management from the University of British Columbia. His is the author of 6 scientific publications and an inventor on two patents.
Dr. Raymond Andersen, Ph.D.
Director, Medicinal Chemistry
Dr. Raymond Andersen is a pioneer in the study of natural marine products. He is internationally known for his research into the identity and structure of novel chemical compounds derived from marine organisms, the molecular routes to their biosynthesis, their role in ocean ecology, and their potential as new drugs.
Research in his laboratory involves the collection of marine invertebrates and bacteria from ocean habitats and screening their extracts for novel secondary metabolites that are potential leads for the development of new drugs. He was the first to show that cold water, as well as tropical water, organisms produce a spectacular range of bioactive metabolites. His research group has successfully isolated and synthesized a large number of new compounds that are present in marine organisms. Among them are those that have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties and these are being developed as anti-asthma, and anti-tumour drugs. Dr. Andersen has been a consulting scientist to one multi-national pharmaceutical company and two Canadian biotechnology companies.
Dr. Andersen holds 17 patents related to novel compounds discovered in his marine invertebrate natural product library. In recognition of his pioneering achievements, Dr. Andersen was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada and recently received the Arthur E. Schwarting Award from the American Society of Pharmacognosy.
Dr. Alice Mui, Ph.D.
Director, Research
Dr. Alice Mui is a talented investigator recruited back to UBC after seven years as a staff scientist at Schering-Plough's research institute (DNAX) in California where she ran a research group devoted to understanding cytokine regulation of immune cell function in order to identify targets for the development of therapeutic strategies.
Studies in Dr. Mui's laboratory currently focus on elucidating the signaling pathways by which the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10) inhibits immune cell activation. In collaboration with Dr. Krystal, Dr. Mui showed that SHIP is required for the anti-inflammatory action of IL-10 on macrophages. Because of the central role of SHIP in this process, her laboratory developed a novel in vitro, high throughput assay to screen Dr. Andersen's marine invertebrate library for small molecule activators or inhibitors of SHIP. Several "hits" were identified, one of which led to Aquinox's lead product AQX-MN100.
Dr. Mui's work in cytokine biology has been recognized by the International Cytokine Society and she has received a scholarship award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Dr. Christopher Ong, Ph.D.
Director, Technology Assessment
Dr. Christopher Ong is an innovative scientist with a history of developing novel technologies for identification and validation of new therapeutic targets and drug discovery. The primary focus of the academic research in Dr. Ong's UBC laboratory is to understand the role of the PI3K/PTEN/SHIP/SHIP2 cell signaling pathway in regulating cell activation, proliferation and survival. In collaboration with the other Aquinox founding scientists, Dr. Ong has been involved in validating SHIP and SHIP2 as ideal therapeutic targets as well as preclinical drug discovery and development of small molecule agonists and antagonists that target SHIP and SHIP2 for treatment of cancer, inflammatory diseases and metabolic diseases.
Dr. Ong holds several patents related to gene trapping and functional genomics technologies. He has recently received a Senior Scholar award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and he is the Director of the VCHRI Mammalian Models of Human Disease core facility.