In the past three decades, Dr. Alex McPherson has distinguished himself as one of Canada’s most accomplished health-care professionals.

His career has spanned a broad spectrum of roles – from university professor to cancer clinic director to deputy minister of Alberta Hospitals and Medical Care to biotechnology company head to numerous directorships.

Yet, at age 62, McPherson continues to zealously wage war as one of the generals on the front lines in the fight against cancer.

McPherson has just celebrated his 10th anniversary as chief executive officer of Biomira Inc., which ranks him as the longest continuously serving head of a Canadian biotechnology company.

But the tireless Edmontonian leaves the distinct impression he won’t rest easy until Biomira’s cancer vaccines are commercialized.

1. What are your recollections of your boyhood years?
“I’m the son of a banker and quite frankly, when I was 16, I thought he must be an embezzler because we seemed to move every month. I lived all over Alberta. I was born in Calgary, but during 12 years in school I lived in nine different locations. So you can take a spot that you like and call that my home.”

Kenton Friesen, Business Edge
Alex McPherson recently celebrated 10 years at the helm of Biomira Inc.

2. How did you spend your youth?
“Sports was my major interest as a young guy. I was dumb enough in those days to be a goalie who needed glasses and didn’t wear the face mask. That’s why I might stutter occasionally (laughing).”

3. So, did you aspire to be a banker so you could continue the nomadic lifestyle with your family?
“Oh, no. I got captivated by a local general practitioner in Vermilion, Dr. Adam Little, who was a marvellous person. I went into the pre-med program at the University of Alberta in 1956 and did the two-year program. I completed medicine in 1962 at the age of 23, which is a ridiculously young age to complete medicine. Then, I went off to Vancouver to do my internship and broke my internship into parts so that I could go up to the Arctic with the Northern Transportation Company and make money as the ship’s doctor, so I could pay off my student loans.”

4. As someone who has made an impact in so many facets of medicine and health care, of which achievement are you most proud?
“That’s a very difficult question. I really think my most sustaining achievement has been the work that I’ve done in clinical cancer research as director of medicine at the Cross Cancer Clinic (in Edmonton).”

5. When you were appointed CEO of Biomira 10 years ago, what was your 10-year vision?
“I had every expectation that we would move all three of our technology products to commercialization. We were working on three products – blood-sample diagnostics; antibodies that were labelled with radioactive compounds that would search out and identify tumours in the human body that could then be used for localizing and possibly treating cancers of the breast, the ovary and the head and neck; and the therapeutic cancer vaccines, which is where our focus is now.
“Eventually it became apparent that, largely due to resources, it wasn’t possible to generate the kind of cash through the equity markets to sustain the enormously intense cash requirements. So, we gradually sold the blood-test company (Biomira Diag-nostics), and we have out-licensed some of the anti-body programs, and now we’re concentrating on therapeutic cancer vaccines.”

6. What’s your vision for Biomira for the next 10 years?
“First, we have to move the program to profitability, meaning we have to move one or more of our current products through to the market.”

7. How important is it to you to bring your company and its products to fruition?
“These are incredibly important products. This is not a factory making widgets. We are concentrating on the development of products that can add substantial quality of life and incredible improvement in survival in patients with very devastating diseases such as breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer and prostate cancer. The human component of what it is that we are doing at Biomira is an incredibly important component.
“What this is is the fulfilment of a dream that goes back to the days when I was primarily involved in the administration of a department at the Cross Cancer Clinic.”

8. If your lead product, Theratope, is commercialized in Phase III clinical testing, what would be your projected revenue for that?
“Most analysts would suggest that at the peak year after launch, which would be four to five years after launch, you’d probably be talking about a half-billion-dollar drug (annual revenue).”

9. What’s the best time line you can provide in terms of bringing Theratope to market?
“We will have an analysis done in the latter half of 2002, and if the data is sufficiently significant and robust, and we go forward with a biological licence to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and later to the European regulators, we could have a product on the market towards the end of 2003 or early 2004.”

10. What are your thoughts about the progress that has been made in the fight against cancer?
“If you go back to the days of the early 1900s, when we were treating cancer with surgery, and then into the mid-1900s, when we were treating it with surgery, radiation therapy and early forms of chemotherapy, the approach to the treatment of cancers was very mutilating and caused enormous amounts of side effects and suffering. I think we’ve kind of moved from the position of shooting canaries with cannons to using a surgeon’s scalpel, as it were, from the point of precision of attack.
“As we’ve moved forward, I think we’ve moved more and more to personalized medicine which allows us to start to identify the little tiny bit of genetic difference that exists in a particular individual and in a particular cancer you can exploit. That way, you’re not attacking the cancer, you’re attacking just the cancer cell.”

11. How do you deal with the trauma of witnessing first-hand the ravages of cancer?
“All the people I’ve treated at the Cross institute were patients with late-stage disease. I got to the point where I could not go to funerals. It got so devastating, I couldn’t stand them.”

12. What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in the biotechnology business?
“That good management with good science will certainly take a product from the bench to the market. Great management with shoddy science may promotionally take a product to the market, but it won’t sustain it. Great science with terrible management may not move a product because of the mistakes they make in the evolution of the product.”

13. What message would you want to convey to investors of biotech companies that have had their share prices eroded in a difficult market?
“Be patient. You have to understand that this is a relatively new paradigm, and it’s a relatively new industry and an important indigenous industry in Canada. We are developing a very, very important piece of the knowledge-based economy of Canada.”

14. And if there isn’t enough patience?
“What we don’t want to have happen is to develop it to the point where it is on the verge of commercial success and then takeovers and acquisitions occur, such that all the real jobs and potential paybacks go elsewhere. And that’s a pretty classic story for Canada.
“It has happened in a variety of industries because we haven’t been sufficiently patient, and other people, including the Americans and Brits, have had more patience and come in to pluck the low-lying fruit, as they say.”

15. As former deputy minister of Alberta Hospitals and Medical Care, what is your opinion of the state of health care in the province?
“I read this morning that (former deputy prime minister hired by the Alberta government) Don Mazankowski will be presenting his report (on health care) to the premier of the province towards the end of November, and from what I can read from that report, it sounds very much like a rehash of the Rainbow Report (authored by McPherson) that was presented in 1990. The problem is not how many reports we need to do, it is when is anybody ever going to do anything? I have to admit that this government under (Ralph) Klein has certainly had the capability and desire to do things. I think the future augers well.”

16. How do you deal with stress?
“The important thing is to try and emphasize the positive aspects of the stress. If you can keep stress positive, then you can withstand it without undue effect on your life. But if it becomes negative, then it really does destroy you. I’ve had my days when I haven’t been totally positive, but generally I’m a positive person, in my opinion.”

17. Is there one person you’d walk over hot coals in bare feet to have lunch with?
“Maybe my wife.”

18. Do you look forward to retirement?
“Yes, I do, but not in the immediate future.”

19. Do you have any aspirations beyond Biomira?
“Quite frankly, if I were to say what I might do after I retired from the biotech industry, I might well think of starting a new activity as a functional planner for airports.”

20. What would be the focus of that planning?
“I think most airports have done a good job of developing good museums and art galleries, but don’t have any consideration for the travelling public, particularly for the business traveller. There hasn’t been a lot of creativity, I think, going into the transportation of people from one place to the other in these airports.”

IN PROFILE: Dr. Alex McPherson

* Born/raised/age: Calgary, nine Alberta towns, 62.

* Title: President/CEO, Biomira Inc. (1991).

* Family: Wife Anne Marie, four children.

* Education: University of Alberta (MD), University of Melbourne, Australia (Ph.D).

* Career: Professor, University of Alberta 1977-95 (currently professor emeritus); formerly Director of Medicine, Cross Cancer Clinic; deputy minister, Alberta Hospitals and Medical Care; deputy commissioner and executive director, Premier’s Commission of Future Health Care for Albertans; president, Alberta Medical Association (1981-82) and Canadian Medical Association (1984-85).

* Directorships: Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), Alberta Blue Cross, EMed Securities (chairman, Canadian Advisory Board), Vanier Institute of the Family, Biomira.

* Passions: Golf, vacationing in Australia, shaving his head for fund-raising campaigns.

THE COMPANY: Biomira Inc.

* Brass: Dr. Alex McPherson, president/CEO; Dr. Mark Young, chief operating officer (resigned effective Dec. 31); Edward Taylor, chief financial officer; B. Michael Longenecker, chief scientific officer.

* Profile: Biomira is focused on developing synthetic therapeutic vaccines and innovative strategies for immunotherapeutic treatment for cancer.

* Slogan: The Cancer Vaccine People.

* Products: Theratope, the lead product in Phase III clinical trials, is a vaccine being developed for treating women with metastatic breast cancer. BLP25, in Phase II clinical trials, is a vaccine for treatment of non-small cell lung cancer and prostate cancer.

* Partnership: Biomira is in collaboration with Merck KGaA, the world's oldest pharmaceutical company.

* Recent stock price (BRA-TSE): $6 (year range, $5.33-$15.95).

* Website: www.biomira.com

* Address: #2011 94th St., Edmonton, AB T6N 1H1.

* Phone/Fax: 780-490-2800, 780-450-4772.