VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WPD Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CSE: WBIO)(FSE: 8SV1) (the “Company” or “WPD”) a clinical stage pharmaceutical company, is excited to announce that Dr. Waldemar Debinski, inventor of WPD101, WPD102 and WPD103 drug candidates has joined its Scientific Advisory Board. The Company’s name comes from the names of inventors Dr. Waldemar Priebe and Dr. Waldemar Debinski, which creates the “WPD” in WPD Pharmaceuticals.
Mariusz Olejniczak, CEO of WPD commented, “Not only is Dr. Debinski an exceptional scientist, he’s also the inventor of WPD101, WPD102 and WPD103 drug candidates of the WPD portfolio, and we are thrilled to welcome him to our scientific advisory board. Dr. Debinski joins our esteemed scientific team of experts and his experience and knowledge of researching and developing drug candidates will be extremely valuable as we continue to advance our portfolio of anti-cancer therapies. Adding Dr. Debinski to our board also establishes a stronger partnership with Wake Forest School of Medicine, which owns Dr. Debinski’s inventions that are licensed by WPD, and we look forward to continued collaboration with their world class research team.”
About Waldemar Debinski
Waldemar Debinski, MD, PhD, is the Tom and Laura Hearn Professor for the Brain Tumor Center of Excellence and Director of the Brain Tumor Center of Excellence, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Comprehensive Cancer Center, and professor of cancer biology, radiation oncology, Microbiology and immunology, and Translational Science Institute at Wake Forest School of Medicine. He has pioneered the discovery and use of targets in malignant brain tumor cells that are not present in a healthy brain to destroy them effectively and safely. With a broad range of expertise and experience in both basic science and preclinical models, he develops novel approaches to drug development and delivery and partners with industry for both therapeutic licensing and testing purposes.
Dr. Debinski holds twenty-five patents on various therapeutics and other cancer-fighting solutions, including a drug candidate that uses specific molecular targets to treat glioblastoma while also being less toxic than radiation and chemotherapy and less invasive than surgery.
Dr. Debinski also partners with researchers at the Virginia Tech – Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences to develop a new method of drug delivery called convection-enhanced delivery. This method has the potential to make brain tumors more accessible to doctors by assisting chemotherapeutics and experimental drugs in bypassing the blood-brain barrier, the main obstacle to successful drugs delivery to brain tumors.
Previously, he was a faculty member at Pennsylvania State University’s neurosurgery department and where he developed a “designer protein,” a single-chain protein that seeks out and makes its way into specific cells, such as cancer cells. One of his early candidate drugs underwent clinical development by industry. He joined Forest School of Medicine in 2004 and continues to focus on the development and assessment of targeted drug candidates for treating brain tumors.
With deep expertise in and novel approaches to drug development and delivery, Dr. Debinski partners with industry for both licensing of new therapeutic approaches and their clinical development. Being that cancers of the brain resemble some other solid tumors at a molecular level, he believes that his discoveries may be applicable to other aggressive types of cancers.
About WPD Pharmaceuticals
WPD is a biotechnology research and development company with a focus on oncology, namely research and development of medicinal products involving biological compounds and small molecules. WPD has 10 novel drug candidates with 4 that are in clinical development stage. These drug candidates were researched at institutions including the Mayo Clinic and Emory University, and WPD currently has ongoing collaborations with Wake Forest University and leading hospitals and academic centers in Poland.
WPD has entered into license agreements with Wake Forest University Health Sciences and sublicense agreements with Moleculin Biotech, Inc. and CNS Pharmaceuticals, Inc., respectively, each of which grant WPD an exclusive, royalty-bearing sublicense to certain technologies of the licensor. Such agreements provide WPD with certain research, development, manufacturing and sales rights, among other things. The sublicense territory from CNS Pharmaceuticals and Moleculin Biotech includes 31 countries in Europe and Asia, including Russia.
On Behalf of the Board
‘Mariusz Olejniczak’
Mariusz Olejniczak
CEO, WDP Pharmaceuticals
Contact:
Investor Relations
Email: investors@wpdpharmaceuticals.com
Tel: 604-428-7050
Web: www.wpdpharmaceuticals.com
Cautionary Statements:
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that contemplate activities, events or developments that the Company can develop effective drugs against cancer. Factors which may prevent the forward looking statement from being realized include that competitors or others may successfully challenge a granted patent and the patent could be rendered void; that we are unable to raise sufficient funding for our research; that we may not meet the requirements to receive the grants awarded; that our drugs don’t provide positive treatment, or if they do, the side effects are damaging; competitors may develop better or cheaper drugs; and we may be unable to obtain regulatory approval for any drugs we develop. Readers should refer to the risk disclosure included from time-to-time in the documents the Company files on SEDAR, available at www.sedar.com. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they are not guarantees of future performance and, accordingly, they should not be relied upon and there can be no assurance that any of them will prove to be accurate. Finally, these forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release and the Company assumes no obligation to update them except as required by applicable law.