91ÒùĸÊÓƵ

Robert Thomas Frost completed his Pharmacy degree at the U of A in 1982. On June 30, 2025, he received the Order of Canada.

In 1979, after finishing his undergraduate science degree at the U of A, Robert Thomas Foster, ’79 BSc, ’82 BSc(Pharm), ’85 PharmD, ’88 PhD, ‘24 DSc (Hon) visited the dentistry-pharmacy building on campus, seeking to learn how to become a toxicologist. By chance, he met and struck up a conversation with noted researcher and academic Antoine Noujaim, who suggested that getting a degree in pharmacy would be a good start.

Foster took the advice, and since completing his BSc(Pharm), spent years making his mark as a scientist, businessman and inventor.

In June 1993, Foster incorporated a company called Isotechnika while seconded from the university (Foster was a tenured associate professor at the time). In the mid-1990s, he discovered voclosporin in collaboration with Selvaraj Naiker (chemistry) and Richard Yatscoff (calcineurin assays). Voclosporin is an immunosuppressive drug that was designed as an anti-rejection treatment for kidney transplant recipients and also for the treatment of autoimmune diseases including psoriasis and lupus. The team at Isotechnika continued on the development pathway for voclosporin through preclinical studies and human clinical trials.

Simultaneously, Foster worked with Richard Fedorak, former dean of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, ultimately creating a breath-based diagnostic called Helikit to test for H. pylori, the bacteria often responsible for gastrointestinal ulcers. In 2013, Isotechnika acquired Aurinia Pharmaceuticals in an all-share purchase. Foster remained as the merged entity’s CEO and later its chief scientific officer and board member until stepping away from the company in February 2014. Prior to his resignation, he changed the name of the company to Aurinia and positioned lupus nephritis as the lead indication for voclosporin. Voclosporin (marketed as Lupkynis™) was approved for treatment of lupus nephritis by the FDA in 2021 with subsequent approvals in the EU, Japan, the U.K., Russia, Switzerland, Norway, Belarus, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Ukraine. Aurinia’s head office remains in Edmonton, with commercial offices in Rockville, Maryland.

From 2014 until 2016, Foster was CEO of a privately held San Diego-based company called Ciclofilin Pharmaceuticals until it was acquired by ContraVir (later called Hepion) Pharmaceuticals based in Edison, New Jersey. Foster served as the company’s CSO until 2018. In 2018, he became CEO, where he remained until 2023, when he resigned to step away from the hectic daily role as CEO of a Nasdaq-listed company. At the time, the company was working on mid-stage clinical development of therapies to treat serious liver diseases including liver fibrosis and cancers.

The 91ÒùĸÊÓƵ honoured him with a 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award for his achievements, which continue to inspire the U of A community. In 2024, Foster received an honourary degree from the U of A as well as  the 91ÒùĸÊÓƵ Order of Excellence. He currently remains an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and is a board member of a Toronto-based private company, Cell Technologies, and an Edmonton-based company, Transcriptome Sciences.