Arizona Tribune - From Ambrx to Oncolytics: Why Jared Kelly Believes the Market May Be Missing the Bigger Oncology Story

What does sophisticated pharmaceutical money actually look for before billions of dollars start moving?

That distinction matters.

Because the biotechnology graveyard is filled with companies that had interesting science but never figured out how to position themselves strategically inside the larger oncology ecosystem. Great science alone is not always enough. The companies that ultimately command attention tend to develop something bigger: platform utility, combination relevance, strategic flexibility, and data capable of changing how larger pharmaceutical companies think about treatment landscapes.

That is part of what makes Oncolytics Biotech increasingly interesting to investors following the immunotherapy space.

The company's lead asset, pelareorep, is no longer being discussed merely as a standalone therapeutic candidate. Increasingly, the conversation surrounding the platform centers on immune activation, combination utility, tumor sensitization, and the possibility that pelareorep could serve as an enabling layer beneath existing oncology treatments.

Leading that effort is Jared Kelly, a biotech executive who already has firsthand experience seeing market perception change rapidly once strategic oncology value becomes recognized. Before joining Oncolytics, Kelly played the key transactional role at Ambrx Biopharma, the oncology-focused biotech ultimately acquired by Johnson & Johnson in a multibillion-dollar transaction announced in March 2024. Prior to his joining Ambrx, the company had a stock price under a dollar and was largely overlooked by investors and large pharma partners.

Now Kelly is attempting to position Oncolytics in a similar way and catapult the company into a very different kind of biotech conversation.

Not simply: "Can this drug work?"

But perhaps more importantly: "How valuable could this platform become if the data continue to mature?"

Hawk Point Media sat down with Kelly to discuss pelareorep, survival data, immune priming, strategic oncology positioning, capital markets, and why he believes the market is underestimating what Oncolytics is building.

HPM: For investors just discovering Oncolytics, what do you believe the market is still misunderstanding about the company from a valuation and strategic perspective?

JK: I think many investors still view oncology drug candidates through an outdated perspective, and it is detached from the reality of how treatment works in the real world. Strategic partners and practicing oncologists know that combinations are the future and also appreciate that immunotherapy is the most important modality in treating cancer.

A lot of people still look at the company and ask a simple question: "Does the drug have single-agent activity?"

They do not realize that the single-agent activity was shown two decades ago, and internally we have moved on from that conversation. We now completely understand the larger vision and how pelareorep works. It would be inefficient to go backward and attempt to update single-agent clinical data just because it is older. A partial response for more than a year as a monotherapy in salvage line breast cancer should be enough for people to accept this drug candidate works.

But what increasingly excites us is not simply pelareorep as a standalone therapeutic candidate. It is the possibility that pelareorep may enhance and improve the effectiveness of existing cancer therapies, particularly in tumor settings where immunotherapy historically has struggled to generate strong responses.

That changes the strategic conversation significantly.

Instead of competing directly against established therapies, we may be helping create conditions that allow those therapies to work more effectively. That creates a much broader opportunity because the platform potentially becomes relevant across multiple treatment settings, multiple tumor types, and multiple therapeutic combinations.

If a platform can improve immune engagement, improve response durability, or help sensitize tumors to existing therapies, the strategic implications can become very large very quickly.

That is why we believe the market may still be underappreciating what pelareorep potentially represents in the long term.

HPM: One phrase that continues appearing throughout your presentations is the idea of turning "cold tumors hot." Explain the significance of that concept and, particularly, why it may be so important to the broader Oncolytics strategy.

JK: Personally, I dislike the nomenclature because it is tired and overused. Plus, many have tried and failed. But we have a systemically delivered oncolytic virus that creates havoc in the tumor microenvironment and makes tumors more susceptible to attack from therapies designed to kill tumor cells. Pelareorep sensitizes tumors to respond to therapy and does so in a way that, to date, has not been shown to create an unbearable safety burden.

We have shown preclinically, clinically, and translationally that pelareorep can engage the immune system to fight tumors. That concept is very important because many cancers remain difficult to treat precisely because the immune system is not meaningfully engaging with the tumor microenvironment.

In simple terms, many tumors essentially become invisible or inaccessible to effective immune response. Immunotherapy has transformed oncology in many areas, but there are still large patient populations for whom immune engagement remains limited or insufficient.

Priming and engaging the immune system are hallmarks of viral immunotherapy. We've seen growing translational evidence that pelareorep results in interferon signaling, T-cell activation, immune priming, and changes in the tumor microenvironment that we believe are strategically meaningful.

That matters because many of the world's largest oncology drugs depend on immune system activity to achieve optimal outcomes.

If you look across oncology today, many of the world's largest therapies are checkpoint inhibitors. But not every patient responds. One of the major strategic questions in oncology is how to increase response rates and improve outcomes in patients, particularly in tumors where immune engagement remains limited.

If pelareorep can help create more favorable immune conditions inside tumors, the platform potentially becomes relevant not only as a therapy itself, but as a mechanism that may improve the effectiveness of existing oncology treatments already generating billions in revenue.

So if you can potentially help convert immunologically inactive tumors into tumors more susceptible to immune attack, the implications extend far beyond a single standalone therapy. Suddenly, you begin creating opportunities across broader treatment ecosystems.

That is one reason we increasingly describe pelareorep as an immune-priming backbone rather than simply a single therapeutic asset.

And strategically, that distinction is very important.

HPM: The survival data generated by pelareorep continue to attract increasing attention from both large pharma partners and the medical community. What do you believe investors should be paying closer attention to?

JK: I think investors sometimes focus too narrowly on response rate without fully appreciating what survival signals can imply strategically.

For patients and families, survival statistics are not abstract numbers. Time matters tremendously in oncology.

Additional survival time can mean more time with family, more opportunities for other therapies to emerge, more opportunities for combination strategies to evolve, and more chances for the science itself to continue advancing.

And it is also important to our primary regulator, the FDA. That is part of what makes survival data so strategically important.

When you begin seeing signals suggesting meaningful extensions in survival across difficult cancers, the conversation naturally becomes much larger than a single dataset. It becomes a discussion about how platforms like pelareorep potentially create additional opportunities for patients over time while the broader oncology landscape continues progressing.

For example, in metastatic colorectal cancer, the REO 022 study evaluating pelareorep in combination with FOLFIRI and bevacizumab demonstrated a median overall survival of 27 months compared to roughly 11.2 months historically associated with FOLFIRI and bevacizumab alone.

In pancreatic cancer, one of the most difficult cancers in oncology, we observed a doubling of 12-month and 24-month survival rates in our meta-analysis across multiple trials.

We saw the same benefit in landmark survival in our recent GOBLET 4 trial studying pelareorep in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor in second-line and later anal cancer: 82% vs. 45.7% for the current standard of care.

Now, obviously, these are different studies across different tumor settings, and additional work remains ahead of us. But what becomes strategically important is that we continue to see evidence suggesting pelareorep may enhance immune engagement and improve therapeutic effectiveness across multiple oncology settings.

And the FDA took notice of this in multiple recent meetings, reminding us that they have approved multiple treatments for colorectal cancer that had almost no response-rate benefit but resulted in long-term survival benefits that were significantly better than standard-of-care therapy. The FDA also noted that our duration-of-response data is so prolonged that it might make it difficult to meet traditional accelerated-approval endpoints, as that duration exceeds the median time-to-event endpoints used for full approval.

That kind of data is extremely rare in oncology drug development. But investors are often looking for earlier catalysts, so they see this data and hear the FDA guidance on survival, but largely ignore it because of the need to achieve returns in the near term. It is a dynamic that has the potential to cripple an ecosystem of innovation.

HPM: You've described yourself in past interviews as a "transactional CEO." That is not language retail investors hear every day in biotech. What do you mean by that?

JK: When I talk about being a transactional CEO, I'm talking about working backward with the intent to move a therapy forward by putting it in the hands of a large pharma partner capable of getting the therapy on the market.

Traditional biotech models often revolve around spending years attempting to independently move a drug from early-stage development all the way through approval and ultimately commercialization. That is incredibly difficult and very rare.

My perspective is that value creation can happen much earlier if you generate the right clinical data, position the regulatory and manufacturing pathways, and align yourself with the right strategic participants.

That is why I believe in pelareorep's potential as a strategic asset.

There are multiple clinical signals and strong translational data showing that our therapy is working as expected. The therapy can be manufactured at a commercial scale without supply chain issues or complicated, costly processes. And when you layer those characteristics onto the possibility that pelareorep could be the combination partner for everything from RAS inhibitors to ADCs to chemotherapies and checkpoint inhibitors, you have something that large pharma can take to the next stage and extract real value.

Our role in this ecosphere is to take interesting science and create the right conditions for a transaction. Because small biotech companies are never going to be able to go at this alone. We would need to raise significant amounts of capital to achieve what large pharma can do by simply taking the billions in revenue they have and directing it to launching a new product like ours.

Many biotech leaders either do not understand this, or they are too attached to the science to let it go.

Our responsibility is not simply advancing science for the sake of advancement. It is to take those ideas and paint the full picture so partners can see the full potential of our science. But they have to see the commercial potential. Or else the science is just interesting science and nothing more.

In my career as a legal and strategic advisor to dozens of biotech and biopharma companies, I saw firsthand how sophisticated pharmaceutical companies evaluate oncology assets. They look at differentiation. They look at scalability. They look at combinational opportunities. They look at where a platform fits within broader treatment ecosystems and where long-term value creation may emerge.

I have been on both sides of the transaction. I have been at Ambrx on the inside of a major deal. But I have also represented investors and strategics in many more transactions where I was able to see how these leaders think about buying assets.

That experience absolutely shapes how I think about Oncolytics.

Our goal is not simply to advance trials indefinitely. Our goal is to build meaningful strategic value around the platform in ways that accelerate opportunities, partnerships, and collaborations, ultimately driving shareholder value creation over time.

HPM: You mentioned Ambrx, which ultimately became a major transaction for your team in 2024. Are there similarities you recognize today when you look at Oncolytics?

JK: Every company and every oncology platform is different, so I want to be careful about making direct comparisons. But what I can say is that certain characteristics consistently attract strategic attention in biotech.

At Ambrx, we saw firsthand how dramatically market perception can evolve once differentiated science, compelling data, and broader strategic value begin aligning in meaningful ways. In late 2022, Ambrx was trading under $1.00, and in late 2023, Johnson & Johnson submitted an offer to acquire the company at $28 per share.

Now that transaction is rare, but such transactions happen more often in biotech than in any other industry. And it has happened multiple times already this year.

Ambrx was slightly different in terms of timing because an investor believed in it before large pharma started digging in. But the similarities are also here. Both of these are 20-year-old companies that have developed their drug product candidates over many years and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars perfecting the science. Both had management teams that were largely science-based before transitioning to more business-focused leadership.

The difference is what is happening outside of the four walls. At Ambrx, we had an ADC platform, and ADCs were and continue to be highly coveted assets. At Oncolytics, we have an immunotherapy platform in a product, and our modality is not white hot yet. But it is trending that way, and the industry is taking a second look at viral immunotherapy in oncology. We expect multiple approvals soon for some of our peer companies developing oncolytic viruses. And we are cheering them on.

But what is most important about my time at Ambrx was the experience to really lead the business development strategy and structure the transaction from the inside while working through a process that included many interested pharma parties. That experience reinforced for me that sophisticated pharma companies often look well beyond temporary market dislocations. They focus on long-term strategic relevance.

When I look at Oncolytics, I see characteristics I believe matter strategically. I see compelling survival data. I see broad combinational utility. I see opportunities across multiple tumor settings. And I see a platform whose potential applications may extend beyond what many investors currently appreciate.

HPM: Speaking of vision, Oncolytics has increasingly begun discussing registration-enabling studies and accelerated approval pathways. Does that mean the company may be transitioning into a different strategic phase altogether?

JK: Yes, in some respects. But for the right reasons.

For many years, the primary focus at Oncolytics was validating the science, demonstrating the mechanism, and generating meaningful clinical signals across multiple studies. What we need to do now is show that pelareorep can be approved for multiple indications and be a commercial success.

That is why discussions surrounding registration-enabling studies become important.

I think investors should recognize that biotech companies often spend years proving scientific legitimacy before the broader market pays attention.

Oncolytics perhaps went public far too early in its development stage. It has grown up in the public markets, and we have to overcome the history that many companies, including Ambrx, do not have. Every study our company has ever done is part of the public domain. That is not the case for many companies that go public later in their life cycle. They can hide studies with confounding results and focus only on value creation once they discover where their drug candidates work best and how they fit into the treatment landscape.

We believe Oncolytics is increasingly entering that phase with the efficacy signals in gastrointestinal tumors.

As the data matures, the conversation begins shifting from pure scientific exploration toward execution, regulatory pathways, strategic partnerships, and long-term commercialization opportunities.

I think investors should understand that this represents an important evolution for the company. But it is not an easy task. There is real work to be done to demonstrate the clear regulatory pathway, help investors understand the manufacturing advantages, and revive an aging intellectual property portfolio.

All of those are being addressed by our current activities and the new management team.

HPM: Along those lines, investors want confidence that a company has the runway necessary to execute. Where does Oncolytics stand from a capital perspective today?

JK: Capital strategy matters tremendously in biotech, particularly in this market environment.

The important point for investors to understand is that capital is available to companies with differentiated science and meaningful data. There are plenty of investors interested in the Oncoytics story.

At the same time, we are extremely disciplined about whom we engage and on what terms.

We are not interested in financing structures that create downward pressure on the stock, misalign incentives, or ultimately become destructive to shareholder value. Protecting long-term shareholder alignment is extremely important to us.

We have kept it very lean while focusing on what we know matters to strategic partners. We have avoided unnecessary dilution for the sake of feeling comfortable and are taking the minimum to keep the company on track to achieve what we need to achieve, including showing new data in colorectal cancer that we believe will change the entire narrative for pelareorep.

Some people will say using our ATM is dilutive and we should just do a transaction already. If a transaction was on the table when I walked in the door, the transaction would already be done. The company had no direction when I took over and was missing regulatory clarity, manufacturing certainty, intellectual property runway, and strong controlled clinical data.

We have achieved half of those milestones and will achieve the remaining items before the end of this year. And we will do it without taking a structured financing and warrants that would cap our upside and result in a reverse split to maintain Nasdaq compliance.

I do not know another management team that would have the courage to do it the way we are. This is certainly not the easy way. But it is the right way.

So, from our perspective, the issue is not whether capital is available. The issue is ensuring that any capital strategy supports long-term platform value and advances our clinical objectives.

HPM: Final question. What do you want investors to understand about Oncolytics right now that the market may still not fully recognize, from a valuation and strategic perspective?

JK: I think investors should understand that transformative biotech stories rarely look obvious in real time.

Markets often become heavily focused on short-term price action while underestimating how quickly perception can change once clinical data mature, strategic relevance increases, and larger industry participants begin paying attention.

When you begin seeing meaningful survival observations across multiple tumor settings, including colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and anal cancer, I think it naturally changes the strategic conversation around a platform.

The market does not always price strategic oncology value efficiently in the early stages. Sometimes the recognition comes gradually. Sometimes it happens very quickly once the right data, partnerships, or strategic interest emerges.

Our responsibility is simple: continue executing the 18-24-month strategy we adopted when we took over this company 12 months ago.

What matters to us is continuing to generate meaningful data, strengthening the platform's strategic relevance, and positioning Oncolytics in ways that create long-term value opportunities.

Sophisticated pharmaceutical companies tend to recognize differentiated science over time.

Just as this team maximized opportunity with Ambrx, we believe the opportunity in front of Oncolytics can be just as substantial.

-End of Interview -

This interview was conducted by Hawk Point Media. HPM has granted permission for Oncolytics Biotechnology to republish this content.

About Oncolytics Biotech Inc.
Oncolytics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing pelareorep, an investigational intravenously delivered double-stranded RNA immunotherapeutic agent. Pelareorep has demonstrated encouraging results in multiple first-line pancreatic cancer studies, two randomized Phase 2 studies in metastatic breast cancer, and early-phase studies in anal and colorectal cancer. It is designed to induce anti-cancer immune responses by converting immunologically "cold" tumors "hot" through the activation of innate and adaptive immune responses.

Forward-looking statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, within the meaning of Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and forward-looking information under applicable Canadian securities laws (such forward-looking statements and forward-looking information are collectively referred to herein as "forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include statements regarding beliefs as to the potential, registration, mechanism of action and benefits of pelareorep as a cancer therapeutic; the Company's goals, strategies, and objectives; expectations around the design, milestones, anticipated timelines and expected outcomes for current and future studies, and projected outcomes of the Company's planned clinical study of pelareorep, including the potential for accelerated regulatory approval; its belief in the clinical promise of pelareorep in anal, colorectal, pancreatic and other gastrointestinal cancers; and the Company's goals and expectations for its potential registrational development path for pelareorep in multiple gastrointestinal cancers. In any forward-looking statement in which Oncolytics expresses an expectation or belief as to future results, such expectations or beliefs are expressed in good faith and are believed to have a reasonable basis, but there can be no assurance that the statement or expectation or belief will be achieved. These statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, regulatory outcomes, trial execution, financial resources, access to capital markets, and market dynamics. Please refer to Oncolytics' public filings with securities regulators in the United States and Canada for more information. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, except as required by law.

Company Contact
Jon Patton
Director of IR & Communication
[email protected]

Contact regarding this interview:

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SOURCE: Oncolytics Biotech

View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire

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