Executive Team and Board of Directors

Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director

Mr. James Passin is a former hedge fund and private equity fund manager at New York-based Firebird Management LLC. He has 20 years of experience as a professional investor, a deep experience of financing and developing venture-stage companies, and directed and managed significant equity and debt investment into biotech companies, with a particular focus on cancer immunotherapy. James was a co-founder and director of Mindset Pharma Inc., a psychedelic biotechnology company acquired by Otsuka Pharmaceutical in 2023. Mr. Passin is a graduate of the Listed Company Director program, Singapore Institute of Directors; has a Certificate in Corporate Governance from the Mongolian Corporate Governance Institute; and is a Chartered Market Technician and Member of The CMT Association.

Kenneth Kovan

Founder, President and Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Kovan has over 30 years of experience in biopharmaceuticals commercial development. He recently served as Corporate Development Partner with Horizon Discovery plc in the United Kingdom, and is Managing Principal & Owner of Bingham Hill Ventures, a life sciences advisory practice he founded in 2012 that specializes in corporate development, technology licensing, and business planning. He is an experienced former biotech CEO and board member, and founder of biotechnology companies including the former Avax Technologies, Inc. Mr. Kovan’s professional background includes several years in technology transfer with Thomas Jefferson University, Strategic Marketing with GlaxoSmithKline, and Global New Product Development with Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals. His therapeutic experience includes infectious disease, antivirals, oncology, vaccines, cell/gene therapy, and gene editing. Mr. Kovan has a broad international business background, having launched pharma brands in Latin American and Asia/Pacific markets, and has worked in Europe for several years.

David Berd, MD

Founder and Chief Medical Officer

Dr. David Berd is a medical oncologist with a lifelong record of clinical research in medical oncology and cancer immunotherapy. He cofounded cancer immunotherapy company AVAX Technologies, is the inventor of the cancer vaccines MVax™ and OVax™, and served as Chief Medical Officer 2005-2008. As National Director for Immunotherapy at Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Dr. Berd investigated the application of the AC vaccine to ovarian cancer. Previously, Dr. Berd was Professor of Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, where for 20 years he conducted clinical research on melanoma immunotherapy. He also spent nine years as a research physician at Fox Chase Cancer Center. Over the course of his career, Dr. Berd has published more than 85 original papers in numerous medical journals alongside dozens of editorials, reviews and abstracts. He has ten issued patents dealing with cancer vaccines. Throughout his career, he has participated in national and international conferences on melanoma and cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Berd received his BS from Pennsylvania State University and his MD from Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.

Craig Loverock, CPA

Independent Director

Craig Loverock is a Chartered Professional Accountant with over 20 years’ experience in accounting and finance roles in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. He brings with him public company reporting and transactional experience, as well as having provided CFO consulting services to a number of private high growth technology businesses, serving as the Senior Financial Advisor to the Chairman at Magna International, and acting as the Chief Compliance Officer and CFO for a private equity firm. Mr. Loverock received his B.Comm (Hons) from Carleton University in 1994 and received his Chartered Accountant’s designation from the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ontario in 1997. He is currently the treasurer of the Durham Community Foundation.

Dr. James Tartaglia

Director

Dr. James Tartaglia is an internationally recognized vaccine development executive with 34 years of industry experience, including 27 years at Sanofi leading a portfolio of 25 vaccine projects from development through life cycle management across influenza, pediatric combinations, RSV, rabies, and meningococcal vaccines. He has contributed to the global licensure of 20 vaccines, holds over 20 patents in recombinant vaccine technology, and has authored 130+ peer-reviewed publications. Prior to founding Tartaglia Consulting, Dr. Tartaglia held research positions at Virogenetics Corporation and the New York State Department of Health, and holds a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Albany Medical College.

Advisors

Dr. Marianne Stanford

Advisor

Dr Stanford was Vice President of R&D at the former IMV Inc, where she and her team were responsible for the development of the DPX™ vaccine portfolio. This included the study of the unique mechanism of action of the DPX platform and it’s safety, efficacy, and dosing schedules in preclinical models. Under her leadership, Dr. Stanford’s team also demonstrated that combining DPX, cyclophosphamide and then PD-1 blockade (using antibodies such as pembrolizumab, Merck’s Keytruda™) enhanced immunogenicity and thus efficacy in cancer models. Dr. Stanford and collaborators have published numerous studies and she is named inventor on multiple patents related to the DPX platform and DPX formulations. This includes patents that explore DPX compositions that express mRNA encoded by the nucleic acid components in targeted cells. Dr. Stanford was most recently the Chief Scientific Officer at Mara Renewables Corp., where she drove the commercialization of bio-based omega-3 nutrition products for global markets and oversaw teams of scientists across multiple research groups, from discovery science to application research. Prior to this role, Dr. Stanford was the Assistant Scientific Director at the Institute for Infection and Immunity at The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Canada's federal funding agency for health research, where she helped build Canada’s national infectious disease research capacity. Dr. Stanford holds a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Dalhousie University, complemented by postdoctoral fellowships in viral immunotherapy and oncology.

Dr. Rajkannan Rajagopalan

Advisor

Dr. Rajagopalan has a PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry/Physical Chemistry, with over 20 years of experience in nanoparticles formulation development for biomolecules (peptides, proteins, nucleic acids, VLPs, mAbs) delivery to treat cancer, infectious diseases and autoimmune disorders. Most recently, Dr. Rajagopalan was Senior Director of Formulation Development at IMV, Inc., where he developed DPX-based vaccines to treat breast, ovarian, bladder and hard to reach cancers; and DPX-based RSV, Anthrax, ZIKA, Ebola, Tuberculosis and SARS infectious disease vaccines, as well as VLP-encapsulated DPX vaccines to treat Malaria and RSV infections. He also developed the DPX formulations for SurMAGE and KRAS/BRAS antigens to treat bladder and colorectal cancers, and formulation technology to deliver multiple peptides (up to 25 neoantigens) in a single DPX formulation for personalized cancer treatment, and an emulsion technology to co-deliver both small molecules chemotherapeutics and antibodies together for cancer treatments. In addition, Dr. Rajagopalan established that DPX technology can be used as a thermostable platform for vaccines with the inclusion of right additives (sugars and biodegradable polymers). Dr. Rajagopalan holds multiple patents to treat cancer and infectious diseases using DPX technology for the delivery of peptides, proteins, nucleic acids and small molecules.

Brittany Davison CPA, CA

Advisor

Ms. Davison is a Chartered Professional Accountant and owner of Davison CPA Consulting Inc., of Halifax, NS. She previously served as Chief Accounting Officer and Acting Chief Financial Officer at IMV Inc., where she led a US$9M Public Offering in December 2022 and assisted in raising more than US$165M during her ten-year tenure at IMV Inc. Ms. Davison was instrumental in IMV Inc. gaining a Nasdaq listing in 2018, and was involved in transactional business development, partnering and investor relations activities. Prior to IMV, she was an Audit Senior with Grant Thornton LLP. Ms. Davidson is assisting with further knowledge transfer associated with the former IMV, Inc. assets, support of investor relations, business development targeting and outreach, and facilitating sources of private funding, government funding and Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentives.

Shmuel Farhi

Advisor

Mr. Farhi is founder and President of Farhi Holding Corporation, a Canadian company that owns more than four million square feet of properties across Ontario. He is a prolific investor in the Canadian, American, and Israeli biotech industry.

Investor Relations

Leadership and Governance

Executive Team and Board of Directors

Advisors

Governance Documents