Departure Of Subsidiary Company Officer
Frank A. Holler, President & CEO of ID Biomedical Corporation
announced that the company has terminated the Employment Agreement of Dr.
Joseph Tai, Senior Vice President Research & Development of its subsidiary
company, ID Vaccine Corporation.
Dr. Tai was recruited to the Company in November, 1996 to advance its
products under development. Recently, a former employer of Dr. Tai
notified the Company of its contention that Dr. Tai's employment agreement
with it precludes Dr. Tai from working on certain ID Vaccine products,
including ID Vaccine's lead product, a vaccine against group A
streptococcus.
Dr. Tai's departure is not expected to impact the development
timetable for the Company's vaccine programs. Responsibility for the group
A streptococcus vaccine has been transferred to Dr. Hans Marquardt of ID
Vaccine. Collaborative BioAlliance of Stony Brook, NY has been engaged to
manufacture the GAS vaccine and ID Vaccine will engage another Contract
Research Organization to carry out the pre-IND toxicity studies. ID
Vaccine intends to immediately recruit a replacement for Dr. Tai.
ID Biomedical Corporation is a North American biotechnology company
that is emerging as a leader in two fields of medicine: gene-based testing
and subunit vaccines. The Company's gene detection platform, Cycling Probe
Technology (CPT), has been shown to have significant cost, time and ease of
use advantages over comparable systems currently on the market. ID
Biomedical's first two products in development are tests for MRSA (in
independent clinical studies) and VRE, which use CPT to detect the genes
responsible for antibiotic resistance. The Company, through it's
subsidiary ID Vaccine, is also engaged in the development of subunit
vaccines against infectious diseases. The Company's lead products are a
vaccine against group A streptococcus and a vaccine for the prevention of
tuberculosis which has been licensed to Pasteur Merieux Connaught, a member
of the Rhone-Poulenc Group.
The foregoing information includes forward-looking statements
concerning, among other things, management's plans and objectives for
future corporate objectives. All such forward-looking statements are, by
necessity, only estimates of future results and actual results achieved by
the Company may differ materially from these statements due to a number of
factors, including i) the Company's ability to successfully complete
preclinical development and manufacturing and obtain timely regulatory
approval, and ii) decisions, and the timing of decisions, made by the
health regulatory agencies regarding approval of the Company's products for
human testing. The Company assumes no obligation to update these
forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changes in
assumptions or changes in other factors affecting such statements.
TEL: (604) 431-9314 Hugh Notman, Director, Corporate Communications
ID Biomedical Corporation
TEL: (604) 739-7500 Mark Reis
James Hoggan & Associates |
