Victor Knopov

Biography

 Dr. Victor Knopov is a renowned expert in pharmaceutical development with over thirty years of experience. He has held leadership positions overseeing Chemistry, Manufacturing and Control (CMC) component of drug development for products ranging from pre-clinical to commercial stage. Dr. Knopov has extensive knowledge in the CMC aspect of a broad range of pharmaceutical products, including commercial production of enzymes, anticancer small molecules and liposomal products. More recently, he has had multiple successes in developing advanced delivery systems for siRNA, microRNA, antisense,and plasmids that are based on lipids, polymer nanoparticles and conjugated systems. Throughout his career, Dr. Knopov has successfully executed multiple global manufacturing campaigns for complex drug modalities including novel excipients, drug substances and drug products. Prior to joining enGene, Dr. Knopov had served as the Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development at Regulus Therapeutic (San Diego, CA) since 2012. He was in charge of all CMC activities at Regulus and was a member of the executive team responsible for the development of the company’s clinical pipeline. He joined Regulus when all their novel miRNA-based products were still at the pre-clinicial stage and he brought 3 products to clinical testing by the time he left the company. Prior to Regulus, Dr. Knopov led CMC development at Nitto Denko Technical Corporation (San Diego, CA). During his tenure at Nitto Denko, Dr. Knopov developed a unique liver-targeted siRNA delivery system for treating advanced non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and post-HCV cirrhosis. He oversaw the development of this novel siRNA delivery technology from idea conception through to entry into human clinical trials. In 2016, Bristol-Myers Squibb paid a $100M upfront payment to Nitto Denko to obtain an exclusive worldwide license for this siRNA delivery technology.  

Research Interest

 From 2008 to 2010, Dr. Knopov was the Chief Operating Officer at Diversified Bio-Medics, Inc., which focused on the development of a single-use platform for biologics manufacturing. From 1997 to 2008, Dr. Knopov held various pharmaceutical manufacturing positions with increasing responsibilities at Inex/Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation (Vancouver, BC), where he led the development of several internal liposome-based products and managed multiple partnered programs in siRNA delivery.