John Simard (born 1962) is a Canadian-born biotechnology entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of XBiotech. ^{[1] [2]}

Early life and education

John Simard was born in 1962 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. ^[3] He earned a biochemistry degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 1992, then pursued immunology at the University of Toronto's Department of Medical Biophysics. ^{[4] [5]}

In 1994, Simard left his graduate program to work with Tak W. Mak at the Amgen Research Institute. ^[6] Later, he co-authored a textbook on immunology with Mak. ^[7] He also co-authored a manuscript with Nobel Laureate Rolf Zinkernagel, focusing on the biology of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). ^[8]

Career

Simard began his career in biotechnology by establishing CTL Immunotherapies in 1997, which focused on vaccine development. ^{[9] [10]} Later, he also founded AlleCure Corp. in Valencia, California, which developed allergy treatments and immune modulating therapies. ^{[11] [12]} His first two companies were eventually merged with MannKind Corporation. ^{[13] [14] [15]}

In 2005, Simard founded XBiotech, which develops cancer vaccines. ^{[16] [17]}

Research

Simard has developed therapies targeting interleukin-1a, including a neutralizing antibody that was sold for a total of $1.35 billion in cash and milestone payments. ^{[18] [19]} He holds over 300 issued and pending patents in areas such as cancer antigen identification, immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases, and techniques for identifying and cloning human antibodies. ^[20]

References