Pieter Cullis

Co-Founder and Board Chair

Focus at NTx

Leadership; Board Chair (Canada); Board Director (UK)

Bio

I’m a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of British Columbia. My co-workers and I have been responsible for fundamental advances in the development of nanomedicines employing lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology for cancer therapies, gene therapies and vaccines. This work has contributed to five drugs that have been approved by the FDA, the EMA and other regulatory bodies. These include Onpattro (the first RNAi drug to receive regulatory approval) to treat the previously fatal hereditary condition transthyretin-induced amyloidosis (hATTR), as well as Comirnaty, the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.

I have also co-founded 11 biotechnology companies that now employ over 400 people, have published over 400 scientific articles and am an inventor on over 100 patents. I co-founded two Canadian National Centre of Excellence networks, the Centre for Drug Research and Development (now AdMare) in 2004 and the NanoMedicines Innovation Network in 2019.

I have received many awards and honours, including the Order of Canada, the VinFuture Prize (Vietnam), and the Prince Mahidol Award (Thailand) in 2021, as well as the Gairdner International Award (Canada) and the Tang Prize (Taiwan) in 2022. I was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 2023.

Interests / hobbies

Relaxing on my island and starting new companies.