Management

We have an experienced, wide-ranging team that leads our company. Members of this team have in-depth knowledge of the cancer diagnostic market and have effectively taken companies from formation to successful exit.

Bern Philip, President & CEO

Mr. Philip is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Bertech. He is also the Company’s founder and a director. Mr. Philip has a diverse background with over twenty years’ experience in senior management in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and government relations sectors and has been involved in medical genetics research in Canada and the USA. Mr. Philip was also President of PBR Laboratories, a contract research organization and served as Executive Director for Canada’s Research Based Pharmaceutical Companies with responsibilities for pharmaceutical industry issues in Western Canada.

Board of Directors

Thomas Fath, Director

Mr. Fath, BSc, MBA, Gold Seal CCA, is a graduate of the University of Alberta. He is owner and President of The Fath Group Ltd. which includes: O’Hanlon Paving, Fath Industries, Hi Signs, Brookwood Camps and Catering, Fath Sports, FC Edmonton, Fath Business Parks, M31 Design Group, and Aubro Services. The company also holds commercial and residential real estate throughout the Edmonton region.

Tom is very active in the Edmonton community and participates on numerous Boards and advisory committees including: Board of Governors and Executive Committee, North American Soccer League (NASL); Co-Chair of Board of Directors, Exciton Technologies Inc, Edmonton; Past Chair of Board of Directors of Alberta Construction Safety Association (ACSA); Member of Parkland County Environmental Advisory Committee; Member of Canadian Soccer Association Professional Committee;

In addition he has been involved with the following Associations, Committees and Councils: Board of Directors, Alberta Roadbuilders and Heavy Construction Association (ARHCA), (November 2003 to November 2012); Past Safety Committee Chair, ARHCA; Past President of the South Edmonton Business Association; Past President of the W.P. Wagner School Parent Council; Past Board of Directors, Edmonton Construction Association, (2006 – 2009); Past Board of Directors and Chair of Recreation Committee, Derrick Club; Past Member of Government and Industry “road safety at work sub-committee”; Past Member of Edmonton Bid Committee for the 2015 Women’s World Cup of Soccer.

Mr. Fath has also focused on addressing environmental issues through innovation and increasing awareness of related issues by helping implement new technologies such as: recycled tire rubber asphalt blending plant, foamed asphalt, cold in place recycling, cold milling, and many others. He continues to support community initiatives by contributing at the local, national, and international levels in a wide range of areas including: sports development, cultural and environmental initiatives, as well as health and well being of children, youth, and adults.

Scientific Board of Advisors

Bertech collaborates with both the researchers that have discovered the technologies as well as scientific advisors/external researchers.

Dr. David Evans

Dr. Evans is a virologist with a special interest in the biology of poxviruses. He has a long-standing interest in the mechanism of viral genetic recombination and the enzymatic links between virus recombination and DNA replication. His work has generated new insights into the mechanism of poxvirus recombination as well as a better understanding of the mode of action of drugs that inhibit poxvirus recombination by interfering in Orthopoxvirus DNA replication. Such drugs are being stockpiled as potential smallpox therapeutics. In collaboration with colleagues in the Department of Oncology, Dr. Evans is also exploring the application of poxviruses as oncolytic agents. Many of these studies are facilitated through collaborations with American, Canadian, Chinese, and European partners and are currently supported by grant funding from NSERC, CIHR, and the Alberta Cancer Board. He has published some 70 primary research papers on these and related topics.

Dr. Evans’ investigations into the mechanism of poxvirus recombination led to the isolation of a vaccinia virus enzyme that catalyzes recombination reactions in vitro. This method has been patented in the USA Europe, and Asia and is sold under license to Clontech-Takara as InFusion® kits. This “recombineering” technology has found its greatest application as a tool for high-throughput cloning of PCR-amplified DNA.

Dr. Evans obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in 1982 and, after post-doctoral studies in Berkeley and Harvard, joined the Faculty of the University of Guelph in 1987. He assumed the Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics in 1998 and served in that position until moving to the University of Alberta in 2003 to become Chair of the Medical Microbiology & Immunology Department. From 2009-12 he also served as Head of the School of Molecular Medicine. At the University of Alberta he has recruited 10 new Faculty and Faculty Service Officers to date (including Dr. M. Houghton, the new Canada Excellence Research Chair in Virology) and led a pan-provincial application to the CFI that resulted in the 2006 award of $24.9 million for a project entitled the “Alberta Institute for Viral Immunology”. In 2010 the University of Alberta was given a gift of $25 million to support additional research in virology and Dr. Evans currently serves as the associate director in the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology. He has accumulated many years of service on NSERC and CIHR panels, including over a decade of service on “Virology and Viral Pathogenesis”, served on several NIH panels, and is a voting member on the WHO smallpox scientific advisory committee. Most recently he has been involved in creating two small biotech companies to commercialize discoveries coming from the Institute of Virology.

Dr. Randy Johnston

Dr. Johnston received a BSc degree (1975) from the University of Victoria and his PhD (1980) and postdoctoral training from Stanford University in California. He has been a faculty member of the University of Calgary since 1984, where he was recruited with funding from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. He was appointed for 10 years as the Terry Fox Professor for Cancer Research at the University of Calgary together with the positions of Director of the Southern Alberta Cancer Research Centre and Associate Director of Research at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre. He was then appointed as the Associate Vice-President of Research for the University of Calgary and subsequently as President of Genome Prairie and Genome Alberta (a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to genomics research as part of the Genome Canada program). In 2006, he returned to his academic position full-time at the University of Calgary in the Departments of Oncology, plus Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Currently, he also holds three roles as General Secretary for the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences, as Director of the Alberta Cancer Research Tumour Bank and Biorepository, and as Director of the University of Calgary’s Master in Biomedical Technology Graduate Program. Dr. Johnston’s research focuses on cancer genomics and promising, novel viral therapies for cancer.

Dr. David Durack

Dr. David Durack is Consulting Professor of Medicine at Duke University, and was Senior Vice President, Corporate Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer at Becton Dickinson & Co. (retired 10/2012). Education: Correspondence School of West Australia; Scotch College, WA; University of WA medical degree ’69; Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Doctor of Philosophy ’73. Internship and residency at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford and Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, London. Research: pathogenesis and chemotherapy of bacterial and fungal infections; Oxford University doctoral thesis entitled “Experimental Endocarditis”. Chief Resident and faculty member, Dept of Medicine, University of Washington, ’74-’77. Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health and Professor of Medicine, Duke University, ’77-’95. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (UK), the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and the American College of Physicians; he has published more than 230 articles and textbook chapters and co-edited several textbooks. Dr. Durack has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Council of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Academy of Microbiology. He has served on an FDA Review Panel, the Joint Commission Resources Board of Directors, and as Chairman of the Board, ASM Resources; he is currently a Director for PixelEXX Systems Inc. He has 17 years’ experience as Medical Affairs functional leader and executive officer in the medical devices and diagnostics industry.

Bertech Pharma Ltd.