Pieter Rutter Cullis (born 12 May 1946 in Barnard Castle, UK) is a Canadian physicist and biochemist known for his contributions to the field of lipid nanoparticles (LNP). Cullis and co-workers have been responsible for fundamental advances in the development of nanomedicines employing lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology for cancer therapies, gene therapies and vaccines. This work has contributed to five drugs that have received clinical approval by the US Food and Drug Agency (FDA), the European Medicines Agency, and Health Canada.
Cullis has also co-founded eleven biotechnology companies that now employ over 400 people, has published over 400 scientific articles (h-index 138) and is an inventor on over 100 patents. Companies he has co-founded include Acuitas Therapeutics, Integrated Nanotherapeutics, Precision NanoSystems, and NanoVation Therapeutics. He has also co-founded and has been the Founding Scientific Director of two National Centre of Excellence networks: the Centre for Drug Research and Development (now AdMare) in 2004 and the NanoMedicines Innovation Network in 2019. These not-for-profit networks are aimed at translating basic research in the life sciences into commercially viable products.
Two recently approved drugs that are enabled by LNP delivery systems devised by Cullis, members of his UBC laboratory, and colleagues in the companies he has co-founded deserve special emphasis. The first is Onpattro which was approved by the US FDA in August 2018 to treat the previously fatal hereditary condition transthyretin-induced amyloidosis (hATTR). Onpattro is the first RNAi drug to receive regulatory approval. The second is Comirnaty, the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech that has received regulatory approval in many jurisdictions including Canada, the US, the UK and Europe. Comirnaty has played a major role in containing the global COVID-19 pandemic with approximately 6B doses administered worldwide in 2021 and 2022.
Research interests Cullis's research interests concern the roles of lipids in biological membranes and the development of nanomedicines using lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technology. His studies on the roles of lipids focus on two areas. The first concerns the ability of membrane lipids to adopt non-bilayer structures and the roles of such structures in processes such as membrane fusion. The second area focuses on transport across bilayer lipid systems induced by trans-bilayer ion gradients. His interests in nanomedicines first concern the design and synthesis of LNP delivery systems containing small molecule drugs, particularly drugs used in cancer chemotherapy, with the aim of increasing potency and reducing toxicity by enhancing drug delivery to, and release at, sites of disease such as tumours. A second area involves using LNP technology to enable the therapeutic use of macromolecular genetic drugs such as small interfering RNA (siRNA) and messenger RNA (mRNA) for gene therapy, including gene editing. These efforts have led to five nanomedicines that have been approved for clinical use by regulatory agencies such as the US Food and Drug Agency (FDA), the European Medicines Agency and Health Canada (see Table below).
Two of these nanomedicines were recently approved and are of particular note. First is the drug Onpattro, a gene therapy that was approved (August 2018) by the FDA to treat hereditary amyloid transthyretin (hATTR) amyloidosis. Onpattro is the first-in-class RNAi-based drug to be approved by the FDA and employs an LNP delivery system developed in collaboration with Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (Boston), his laboratory at UBC and two spin-offs that he co-founded (Protiva/Arbutus and Acuitas Therapeutics). Onpattro delivers an siRNA to silence the TTR gene in the liver. A remarkable feature of Onpattro is that it is able to not only stop further progression of this hitherto untreatable disease (which usually leads to death within five years of diagnosis), but also to reverse the neuropathies and cardiovascular issues associated with hATTR. The second class of medicines are the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines that Acuitas developed with Pfizer/BioNTech and CureVac. The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 relies on an LNP delivery system developed by Acuitas. BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) was approved for emergency use (December 2020) by the US FDA and has subsequently been approved by the US, UK, Canada, Europe and many other countries worldwide. These approvals were made on the basis of a 95% efficacy in preventing COVID-19, together with an excellent safety profile. More than five billion doses of this vaccine were administered globally in 2021–22 and the vaccine has been credited with saving over six million lives in 2021 alone.
Nanomedicine drugs The following approved nanomedicine drugs have been co-developed by Cullis's laboratory at the University of British Columbia and by the companies he has co-founded (Inex Pharmaceuticals Corp, Protiva Biotherapeutics, Canadian Liposome Company, Acuitas Therapeutics). +Nanomedicine drugTrade nameIndicationStatus (2020)CompanyLNP AmphotericinAbelcetFungal infections Approved US, Europe – 1995Enzon/Canadian Lipo CoLNP DoxorubicinMyocetMetastatic breast cancerApproved Europe, Canada – 2000Cephalon/Canadian Lipo CoLNP VincristineMarqiboAcute lymphoblastic leukemiaApproved US – 2012Spectrum Pharma/InexLNP siRNA TTROnpattroTransthyretin-induced amyloidosisApproved US, Europe – 2018Alnylam/AcuitasLNP mRNA SARS Cov 2ComirnatyCOVID-19 mRNA vaccineApproved US, Europe – 2021Pfizer/BioNTech/Acuitas
Research and professional experience +Institution/companyTitleUBC, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular BiologyAssistant Professor (1978); Associate Professor (1982); Professor (1985–present)Lipex Biomembranes (now Evonik Canada)Co-Founder (1985); Chairman (1985–2000)Canadian Liposome CompanyCo-Founder (1986); Director & President (1986–1991)Northern Lipids (now Evonik Canada)Co-Founder (1992); Director (1992–1996)Inex Pharmaceuticals Corp (now GeneVant)Co-Founder (1992); Director (1992–2007); VP Research (1992–2004)Protiva Biotherapeutics (now Arbutus)Co-founder (2001); Director & Chair, SAB (2001–2005)Centre Drug Research & Development (now AdMare)Co-founder (2004); Scientific Director (2004–2010)Acuitas TherapeuticsCo-Founder (2009); Chairman (2009–2021)Precision NanoSystems (now Cytiva)Co-Founder (2010); Chairman (2010–2015)Personalized Medicine InitiativeCo-Founder (2011); Chairman (2011–2017)Life Sciences Institute, UBCDirector (2013–2017)GenXys Health Care SystemsCo-Founder (2014); Director (2014–2016)MesentechCo-Founder (2014); Director (2014–2019)Molecular You CorporationCo-Founder (2014); Chairman (2014–present)AllerGen National Centre of ExcellenceDirector (2014–present); Chairman (2017–present)Integrated NanoTherapeuticsCo-Founder (2015); Chairman (2015–2021)NanoMedicines Innovation Network NCEFounder (2019); Scientific Director & CEO (2019–2021)NanoVation TherapeuticsCo-Founder (2020); Chairman (2020–present)
Academic and professional awards +StartEndName of AwardAgency19731976MRC Postdoctoral FellowshipCanadian Medical Research Council19771977EMBO Postdoctoral FellowshipEuropean Molecular Biology Organization19781982MRC ScholarMedical Research Council of Canada19831989MRC ScientistMedical Research Council of Canada1986Ayerst AwardCanadian Biochemical Society19881989UBC Killam Research PrizeUniversity of British Columbia1988Jacob Bierly Research PrizeUniversity of British Columbia1991Gold Medal for Health SciencesBC Science Council2000Alec Bangham AwardInternational Liposome Society2002Award for Innovation and AchievementBC Biotechnology Alliance2004Fellow of the Royal Society of CanadaRoyal Society of Canada2005Barre AwardUniversity of Montreal2005UBC Alumni Award for Research, Science & MedicineUniversity of British Columbia2010CSPS Leadership AwardCanadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences2011Bill and Marilyn Webber Lifetime Achievement AwardUniversity of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine2011Prix Galien Canada Research AwardPrix Galien Canada2012Senior Faculty Award-Outstanding ContributionsUniversity of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine2015Milton Wong Leadership AwardLife Science BC2016Lifetime Achievement AwardJournal of Drug Targeting2018Fellow National Academy of InventorsNational Academy of Inventors, USA2021Founder's AwardControlled Release Society, USA2021Prince Mahidol Award (Medicine)Prince Mahidol Award Foundation, Thailand2021Officer, Order of CanadaGovernor General of Canada2022VinFuture Prize, Grand PrizeVinFuture Foundation, Vietnam2022Canada Gairdner International AwardGairdner Foundation, Canada2022Lipid Science PrizeCamurus Foundation, Sweden2022Thudichum Life AwardPhospholipid Research Centre, Germany2022UBC Alumni Award of DistinctionUniversity of British Columbia2022Tang Prize (Biopharmaceutical Science)Tang Foundation, Taiwan2022Governor General's Innovation AwardRideau Hall Foundation, Canada2022Global Impact AwardLife Sciences BC2022Bloom Burton AwardBloom Burton & Co.2023Julia Levy AwardSociety for Chemical Industry2023Doctorate Honoris CausaGhent University, Belgium2023Killam PrizeKillam Foundation, National Research Council, Canada2023Fellow of the Royal SocietyRoyal Society, London2023Sultan Karim Medal of Excellence in Clinical PharmacologyUniversity of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine2023Member, Order of British ColumbiaGovernor General of BC2023Member, Canadian Medical Hall of FameCanadian Medical Hall of Fame2023Harvey Prize (awarded for the year 2021)Technion, Israel2023Bill and Marilyn Webber Lifetime Achievement AwardUniversity of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine2024Maurice-Marie Janot AwardAssociation de Pharmacie Galénique Industrielle, France2025Scheele AwardSwedish Pharmaceutical Society, Sweden
References