Hepion Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Foster is currently CEO of Hepion Pharmaceuticals, based in Edison, NJ and Edmonton, Canada. He is also Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Alberta, and is currently a Board member of Transcriptome Sciences Inc. He previously served as a Board member for Alberta Economic Development Authority, Business Competitiveness and Diversification Committee; Board member of Alberta Economic Development, Fiscal Planning and Policy Committee; Council Member, Alberta Premier’s Advisory Council on Health; Advisory Board Member, Industry Liaison Office, University of Alberta; Co-Chair and Board member of BioAlberta; and Board of Management, Alberta Science and Research Authority.

Dr. Foster first began working on cyclophilin drug development in 1988, and brings more than 30 years of pharmaceutical and biotech experience to Hepion. Prior to Hepion, he was CEO and Founder of Ciclofilin Pharmaceuticals Inc., which merged with Hepion in 2016. He founded Isotechnika Pharma Inc. (TSX:ISA) in 1993, and was its Chairman and CEO for approximately 21 years. Dr. Foster was founding CEO, and later CSO, of Aurinia (NASDAQ:AUPH) after it was acquired by Isotechnika. During his tenure at Isotechnika, Dr. Foster discovered voclosporin, an immunosuppressive drug to treat autoimmune diseases.

In 2002, while CEO of Isotechnika, Dr. Foster structured a $215 million USD licensing deal, Canada’s largest at the time, for voclosporin with Hoffman-La Roche (Basel, Switzerland). In addition to pharmaceutical discovery and development, Dr. Foster also developed and obtained regulatory approvals for a commercially available 13C urea breath test, called Helikit, for the diagnosis of H. pylori. Dr. Foster sold Helikit that today has multimillion-dollar sales that continue in Canada and other countries.

Dr. Foster holds undergraduate degrees in Science (chemistry) and Pharmacy and has a post-graduate PharmD and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Foster served as a tenured, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Alberta from 1988 to 1997. From 1990 to 1994, Dr. Foster was Medical Staff, Scientific and Research Associate in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the Walter C. MacKenzie Health Sciences Centre.

Dr. Foster has published approximately 200 papers, abstracts and book chapters focused on drug analysis, development, and pharmacokinetics, and received numerous awards for both pharmaceutical research and teaching. Dr. Foster was named one of Alberta’s 50 Most Influential People in 2002, and on behalf of Isotechnika, received recognition as both Alberta Venture’s 3rd Fastest Growing Company, and Profit Magazine’s top 100 Fastest Growing Canadian Company in 2003. Dr. Foster previously served as Division Chairman of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Alberta and has acted as a consultant to many pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Foster is named as an inventor on approximately 170 patents.

Dr. Mayo began working on cyclophilin in 1983 and has 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. His work across all phases of drug development, from pre-clinical to Phase 4 post-marketing surveillance, has been instrumental in regulatory submissions including INDs and NDAs. He has direct hands-on expertise in pre-clinical and clinical pharmacology, drug discovery, population pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PK/PD), and physiologically-based modelling.

Dr. Mayo’s work has focused on calcineurin inhibitors cyclosporine, tacrolimus and voclosporin, an analogue of cyclosporine. He began his career in the pharmaceutical industry as a clinical research organization kineticist, where he worked extensively on cyclosporine, including the reformulation of cyclosporine, Neoral™. Most recently, Dr. Mayo published on the population PK/PD of tacrolimus and mycophenolic acid in renal allograft patients and provided population PK modelling and simulation support for Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Phase 2 voclosporin study in lupus nephritis. He also provided PK analyses of early cyclophilin inhibitors developed by Ciclofilin Pharmaceuticals. In addition, Dr. Mayo was the Director of Clinical Pharmacology for Isotechnika during the Phase 1 through Phase 3 work on voclosporin in renal transplantation and plaque psoriasis.

Dr. Mayo obtained his PhD in pharmacokinetics from the University of Alberta, specializing in the effect of disease states on PK/PD relationships. He holds a BSc degree in pharmacy from the University of Alberta, where he worked as a clinical pharmacist in critical care, palliative care, and renal transplant. Dr. Mayo continues to provide pharmacometric analyses via Cogitare Analytics, and is the author, or co-author, of numerous scientific papers, abstracts and book chapters.