Can a Virus Turn Cancer Against Itself? The Next Era of Cancer Immunotherapy | Jared Kelly - Chief Executive Officer, Oncolytics Biotech

Send us Fan MailWhat if one of the biggest problems in cancer isn't that we don't have enough drugs to kill cancer cells - it's that the immune system sometimes can't see the cancer in the first place? There's a fascinating new strategy trying to change that: using a virus to make tumors more visible to the immune system.Today we're going to explore a fascinating and potentially transformative area of cancer medicine: oncolytic immunotherapy - using viruses or other immune-stimulating mechanisms to turn tumors from immunologically "cold" environments into tumors that the immune system can actually recognize and attack.Jared Kelly is the Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Oncolytics Biotech ( https://oncolyticsbiotech.com/ ), a company developing pelareorep, an investigational, intravenously delivered double-stranded RNA immunotherapy designed to activate the immune system and remodel the tumor microenvironment.Unlike many targeted cancer therapies that depend upon finding a particular mutation or surface antigen, pelareorep is designed to exploit a different vulnerability - using double-stranded RNA to trigger an inflammatory response, generate and activate tumor-reactive immune cells, and help those cells penetrate the tumor. The company's goal is ultimately to make the tumor more receptive to multiple other therapies.And Jared brings a rather unusual perspective to this story.  He's not a traditional biotech CEO who came up exclusively through drug discovery. He's an attorney and corporate strategist who spent years advising public companies and biotech companies on capital markets, M&A and corporate transactions before moving into biotech leadership.Previously at Ambrx, Jared served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary and played a central role in the company's transformation, financing, licensing activities and eventual $2 billion acquisition by Johnson & Johnson. He subsequently became CEO of Oncolytics in June 2025.Today we're going to talk about the science of oncolytic immunotherapy, why the field may finally be reaching an inflection point, how pelareorep works, why the tumor microenvironment is so important, and perhaps most importantly - whether oncolytic immunotherapy could become the next major platform technology in oncology, in the same way that antibody-drug conjugates have rapidly moved from niche technology to mainstream cancer treatment.#Cancer #CancerResearch #CancerTreatment #CancerImmunotherapy #Immunotherapy #Oncology #OncolyticVirus #OncolyticViruses #Pelareorep #OncolyticsBiotech #Biotech #Biotechnology #DrugDevelopment #Pharma #PrecisionMedicine #TumorMicroenvironment #ImmunoOncology #KRAS #KRASCancer #ClinicalTrials #CancerScience #MedicalResearch #HealthcareInnovation #Science #Innovation #ProgressPotentialAndPossibilities #PPPSupport the show