August 21, 2018
Cardiol Therapeutics Appoints Dr. Eldon Smith as Chairman and Dr. Guillermo Torre-Amione, Ms. Deborah Brown, and Mr. Iain Chalmers to its Board of Directors
Oakville, Ontario, August 21, 2018 – Cardiol Therapeutics Inc. (“Cardiol” or the “Company”), a nanotherapeutics company focused on advancing the treatment of heart failure by developing proprietary formulations designed to deliver cannabinoids and other drugs to inflamed tissue in the heart, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Eldon Smith, OC, LLD (Hon), MD, FCAHS, FCCS, FRCPC, as Chairman, and Dr. Guillermo Torre-Amione, MD, PhD, Ms. Deborah Brown, MBA, and Mr. Iain Chalmers, MBA, to its Board of Directors.
Dr. Eldon Smith received his medical degree cum laude from Dalhousie University. Following Internal Medicine and Cardiology training in Canada, the UK, and the USA, he joined the Faculty at Dalhousie in 1973. In 1980, Dr. Smith became Head of Cardiology at the University of Calgary and the Foothills Hospital in Calgary; subsequently becoming Chairman of Medicine, Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, and from 1992 to 1997 Dean of Medicine. From 1997 to 2010, he was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology. Dr. Smith has published more than 250 papers and has contributed to many organizations, including being President of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society and the Association of Canadian Medical Colleges. In 2006, the Federal government appointed him to Chair the Steering Committee for the Canadian Heart Health Strategy. Dr. Smith became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005 and in 2014 received an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Dalhousie University. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Smith has been a Director of more than ten public companies focused on the biotech sector; among his roles are Chairman and Lead Director. Dr. Smith currently serves as Cardiol’s Chief Medical Officer.
Board certified in Cardiovascular Disease and Advanced Heart Failure/Transplant Cardiology, Dr. Guillermo Torre-Amione is former chief of the Heart Failure Division and medical director of Cardiac Transplantation at the Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center. He also is a senior member at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, full professor of medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, New York, and, more recently, became President of TecSalud, an academic medical center and medical school of the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico. Dr. Torre-Amione spearheads the Gene and Judy Campbell Laboratory for Cardiac Transplant Research, where his primary areas of research include heart failure, cardiac transplantation, and the role of the immune response in modulating the progression of heart failure. He initiated a series of clinical studies that led to an FDA-approved phase II clinical trial of neurostimulation in heart failure, a novel approach to the treatment of patients with advanced heart failure. Dr. Torre-Amione received his medical degree from the ITESM and a doctorate degree in immunology from the University of Chicago. He has published more than 170 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. He currently divides his time between his clinical and academic activities at The Methodist Hospital and ITESM. Prior to being appointed to Cardiol’s Board of Directors, Dr. Torre-Amione was a member of the Company’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Ms. Deborah Brown is Managing Partner of Accelera Canada Ltd., a specialty consultancy firm that assists emerging biopharma ventures with the development and implementation of their Canadian market strategy. She has extensive North American leadership experience, having held progressively senior roles at EMD Serono (a division of Merck KGaA, Merck Serono) from 2000 to 2014, including Executive Vice President of Neuroimmunology for the company’s U.S. operations, and President and General Manager of the company’s Canadian operations. During her 15 years at EMD Serono Canada, Ms. Brown led the organization through a period of unprecedented growth from a small $10 million affiliate to a mid-sized pharma business with a diversified portfolio generating $150 million in revenue. She led the successful and most critical product launch in Serono’s company history in the United States, resulting in a blockbuster product. In 2009, Ms. Brown was inducted into the Canadian Healthcare Marketing Hall of Fame and in 2012, she chaired the National Pharmaceutical Organization (now Innovative Medicines Canada) and served on its Board of Directors from 2007 to 2014. Currently, she sits on the Boards of Life Sciences Ontario, Oncolytics Biotech Inc., the Strategic Executive Advisory Council for Canadian Cancer Trials Group, and her local SPCA. Ms. Brown holds an MBA from University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business, a B.Sc. (Hons). from the University of Guelph and completed the Merck Executive MBA Program at the University of Hong Kong, INSEAD, and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the Harvard University Advanced Negotiation Skills program.
Mr. Iain Chalmers is currently a professor of Marketing and Alcohol Business Management at Centennial College in Toronto Ontario. He recently transitioned to teaching after spending nearly thirty years in the Consumer Packaged Goods business, where for the last eight years, he was the Vice President of Marketing & Innovation for Diageo Canada, the world’s largest alcohol spirits company. Prior to this, he spent eleven years at Gillette/Procter & Gamble in various senior positions, including General Sales and Marketing Director for the Gillette Grooming Division. Iain is a seasoned marketer and brand builder with experience in Canada and the U.S. He led the Business Development and Sales Planning function for Braun USA and worked in marketing and sales positions at Unilever and Wrigley Canada. While at Diageo, he was recognized by Marketing Magazine as one of the top four Marketers in Canada, based on the strong creative output of his team and consistent business performance for global brands, including Guinness, Smirnoff, Crown Royal, and Captain Morgan. Working in the alcohol industry has given Iain extensive experience building brands in a highly government-regulated environment. He is a past member of the Association of Canadian Advertisers, Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) and was a member of the Judicial Committee for ASC. Iain holds a BA in Political Science from University of Western Ontario, a Graduate Certificate in Management from Harvard University, a Bachelor of Education and an MBA from Charles Sturt University, and is a Certified Advertising Agency Practitioner (CAAP) from the Institute of Canadian Advertising.
“We are extremely fortunate to be able to attract such highly distinguished and accomplished individuals to our Board of Directors, they bring a wealth of experience and expertise in their respective fields to Cardiol,” stated David Elsley, President & CEO of Cardiol. “We look forward to benefiting from their guidance and stewardship as we advance our development of innovative approaches to the treatment of heart failure and commercial introduction of pharmaceutical cannabinoid products to the rapidly growing market for medicinal cannabinoids.”
About Cardiol Therapeutics
Cardiol Therapeutics, crdl.starnix.com, is a nanotherapeutics company focused on the research and commercial development of proprietary drug formulations for the treatment of heart failure. The Company is collaborating with researchers and opinion leaders at international centers of excellence to leverage multidisciplinary expertise in drug delivery, drug formulation, nanotherapeutics, cardiac physiology, and heart failure. These research collaborations provide Cardiol with the optimal platform on which to pursue the commercial development of important anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic therapies for heart failure. Heart failure is a chronic condition affecting over six million adults in Canada and the United States and it remains a leading cause of death and hospitalization, with associated healthcare costs exceeding $30 billion annually. Approximately half of all heart failure patients have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), for which there have been no new therapies developed in over 20 years. Cardiol is developing CTX01, a proprietary nanoformulation of pharmaceutical cannabidiol for the treatment of HFpEF. Cannabidiol has been shown to attenuate cardiac dysfunction in experimental models of diabetic cardiomyopathy and to decrease oxidative stress, fibrosis, and inflammation in other models relevant to HFpEF. CTX01 is designed to optimize and maintain blood levels of cannabidiol and target the drug to areas of inflammation in the heart. Cardiol is also developing CTX02, a proprietary nanoformulation of methotrexate, and CTX03, a proprietary nanoformulation of encapsulated Cyclosporine A (CsA), both for the treatment of heart failure. Additionally, in collaboration with the Company’s exclusive manufacturing partner Dalton Pharma Services, Cardiol is developing unique manufacturing expertise in the production of pharmaceutically-produced cannabinoids. With the de-scheduling of cannabinoids from the Canadian Controlled Drug Substance Act to occur on October 17, 2018, Cardiol believes there is a significant opportunity to utilize this manufacturing expertise to produce pharmaceutical cannabinoids for commercial introduction to the growing market for medicinal cannabinoids.
