Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc. appointed Dr. Robert T. Foster to the Board. Dr. Robert T. Foster is the CEO of Hepion Pharmaceuticals, based in Edison, NJ and Edmonton, Canada. He is also an Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Alberta, and is currently a Board member of Transcriptome Sciences Inc. Dr. Foster first began working on cyclophilin drug development in 1988 and has more than 30 years of pharmaceutical and biotech experience.

Dr. Foster founded Isotechnika Pharma Inc. in 1993 and was its Chairman and CEO for approximately 21 years. During his tenure at Isotechnika, Dr. Foster discovered voclosporin. In 2002, Dr. Foster structured a USD 215 million licensing deal, Canada's largest at the time, for voclosporin for kidney transplant immunosuppression with Hoffman-La Roche.

He served as founding Chief Executive Officer, and subsequently Chief Scientific Officer, of Aurinia after it was acquired by Isotechnika in 2013. Today, voclosporin is Aurinia's FDA-approved therapy for lupus nephritis, marketed under the brand name LUPKYNIS®. Dr. Foster holds undergraduate degrees in chemistry and pharmacy and has a post-graduate PharmD and Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences.

Dr. Foster served as a tenured, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Alberta from 1988 to 1997. From 1990 to 1994, Dr. Foster was Medical Staff, Scientific and Research Associate in the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the Walter C. Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre.