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Trading Data
| Share Structure
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| Exchange Symbol:
| TSX: ONC
| As at December 9, 2009
| | | NASDAQ: ONCY | Outstanding:
| 61.5 million | | | Fully diluted:
| 69.7 million |
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THE COMPANY
Oncolytics Biotech Inc. focuses on the discovery and development of pharmaceutical products for the treatment of a wide variety of human cancers. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the Company was formed in 1998 to explore the oncolytic capability of the reovirus, a virus that preferentially replicates in cells with an activated Ras pathway, one of the most common family of genetic defects leading to cancer.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Twelve human clinical trials concluded
- Special Protocol Assessment agreed with the U.S. FDA and approval from the U.K. MHRA for a Phase 3 clinical trial for patients with platinum-refractory head and neck cancers
- Conducting multiple Phase I/II or Phase II REOLYSIN clinical trials in the United Kingdom and the United States.
- Positive interim and final data emerging including clinical responses in lung, liver and nodal metastatic disease
- Collaborative agreements with the National Cancer Institute, the University of Leeds, and the Cancer Therapy & Research Center at the University of Texas Health Science Center in the U.S. to conduct multiple clinical trials
- Strong IP position
- Experienced management team and board of directors
THE PRODUCT
The Company’s technologies are based on discoveries made in the 1990s in the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Calgary. The potential products are being developed using the naturally occurring reovirus for treatment of cancers in humans. The reovirus, or Respiratory Enteric Orphan virus, has been demonstrated to replicate specifically in tumour cells that have a constitutively activated Ras pathway. Activating mutations of Ras and mutations along the Ras pathway occur in approximately two-thirds of all tumours. Tumours bearing an activated Ras pathway are deficient in their ability to activate an anti-viral response mediated by the host cellular protein, PKR. Since PKR is responsible for preventing reovirus replication, tumour cells lacking the activity of PKR are susceptible to reovirus infection and eventual cell death. As normal cells do not possess Ras activation, these cells are able to thwart reovirus infection by the activity of PKR. In a tumour cell with an activated Ras pathway, the reovirus is able to freely replicate and kill the host tumour cell. Progeny virus particles are then able to infect and kill surrounding cancer cells. This cycle of infection, replication and cell death is believed to be repeated until there are no longer any tumour cells carrying an activated Ras pathway available.
THE MARKET
Approximately 1.5 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in 2009, and more than half a million will die of cancer. In the U.S., cancer accounts for one of every four deaths, second only to cardiovascular disease. The relative lifetime risk of a male developing cancer is 1 in 2, while for women, the risk is 1 in 3.
The costs of these diseases are also significant. In the United States, the National Institutes of Health estimate that the overall annual cost for cancer in 2008 was $228.1 billion, of which $93.2 billion could be attributed to direct patient costs.
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