Vuong Trieu, Ph.D. is the founder and chairman of Oncotelic and now serves as Chairman of the Board of Mateon Therapeutic following the merger of Oncotelic and Mateon. Dr. Trieu team has been leading drug discovery, preclinical and clinical development, and commercialization for many successful drug programs over 25 years, including Abraxane®- the leading chemotherapeutic agent against pancreatic cancer, lung, melanoma, and breast cancer with annual revenue of >1B USD. The team led the preclinical and clinical pharmacology efforts in the development of Abraxane, and was the co-inventor of the intellectual property covering Abraxane. The team also invented and developed Cynviloq as 2nd generation Abraxane. Cynviloq completed phase 1,2, and 3 in breast, lung, and ovarian cancers.
The team and Dr. Trieu have deep expertise in oligotherapeutics having been with the field since its inception as therapy for the bubble boy syndrome with Dr. French Anderson. Dr. Trieu went on to develop oligotherapeutics for heart diseases as part of Genetic Therapy Inc. which later was acquired by Sandoz. At GTI he pioneered the use of adenovirus for gene therapy. He was also Executive Chairman and Interim CEO of Marina Biotech, Inc. from 2016 to 2018. He and the team at Marina Biotech is a developer of oligotherapeutic (tkRNAi) for the treatment of FAP/CRC (Familial adenomatous polyposis/ Colorectal Cancer). The drug product completed phase I proof of concept study with knockdown of target gene and reduction of intestinal polyps. He and the team then formed Oncotelic and is developing oligotherapeutic against TGF-beta (OT-101/antisense). OT-101 completed multiple phase 2 trials against glioblastoma, pancreatic cancer, and melanoma.
Dr. Trieu holds a PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Biology, BS in Microbiology and Botany. He is a member of ENDO, ASCO, AACR, and many other professional organizations. Dr. Trieu published widely in oncology, cardiovascular, and drug development. He discovered Helicase IV – an important enzyme in DNA replication during his doctoral training and later on went on to clone the apolipoprotein family AI-CII-CIII. Following his doctoral training he became Laboratory Director of Pediatric Liver Transplantation Program at Wyler Children Hospital, University of Chicago, Professor at UNT Health Science Center, and Director of Cardiovascular Biology program at University of Minnesota-St. Paul Parker Hughes Cancer Center. He is well trained in Virology including genetic studies of 1) lambda phage, 2) Tn3/Tn5 transposons, 3) and baculovirus. He also studied extensively the biology and application of virus for genetic therapy including: 1) retrovirus – RNA viruses including HIV, 2) adenovirus that cause cold-like symptoms, fever, sore throat, bronchitis, pneumonia, diarrhea, and pink eye 3) and AAV- single-stranded DNA virus. He was trained under Dr. French Anderson- the father of genetic therapy- who revolutionized the field with the genetic treatment of the bubble-boy (SCID) syndrome. As CEO of Oncotelic he is leading the use of antisense as therapeutics including the treatment of cancer using OT-101 antisense against TGF-beta and now COVID1-11 for treatment of COVID-19.
As part of his team- Cyril Empig PhD- has over 15 year experience in infectious disease, HIV biotherapeutics and vaccine, and viral response programs including herpes simplex virus (HSV) and smallpox. He led a $44 million Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) project for the treatment of hemorrhagic fever viruses using human monoclonal antibodies. Dr. Empig managed cross-functional teams and been involved in all stages of pharmaceutical product development from pre-clinical (inception to IND submission) to clinical research (Phase II/III) at Nantbio, Peregrine, Pain Therapeutics, and Vaxgen.