Brad Sorenson doesn’t believe in coincidence, but he does believe in providence. So much so that the biotech entrepreneur named his company after it.
Sorenson founded Providence Therapeutics, a Calgary-based company focused on developing mRNA-based medicines and vaccines, in 2015, on the heels of his 13-year-old son Adam’s cancer diagnosis.
“The original mission of the company was to have something for Adam if he needed it. I’ve done that. The new mission is to make that same blessing available to as many people fighting cancer as I can.”
Brad Sorenson, Providence
At the time, Sorenson was working with an earlier startup called Arcturus Therapeutics that was also focused on RNA-based therapies. He was participating in San Diego-based incubator JLabs and collaborating with Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center to apply the company’s lipid nanoparticle technology to glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) treatment, an aggressive form of cancer that begins in the brain. Just days after the group completed its first proof-of-concept experiment review, Adam was diagnosed with advanced, late-stage GBM.
Sorenson felt the connection was too providential to ignore.
As his son underwent treatment, including two surgeries and radiation therapy, Sorenson turned his professional attention toward options to treat GBM and other cancers, eventually leaving Arcturus to focus full-time on oncology-related therapies. With Adam now in remission, Sorenson’s work became a kind of insurance policy against an illness that, as he points out, “always comes back.”
“I started the company because I wanted to have something in case my son’s cancer came back,” Sorenson told BetaKit. “I know that sounds trite, but that’s actually why I did it.”
It’s also the reason the company has largely remained private and tightly controlled by Sorenson, despite making big waves during the COVID-19 pandemic and attracting millions in private investment.
“Up until COVID, we were a very tightly held, stealth company that nobody knew about, and I was totally comfortable with that,” Sorenson said. “We had 12 people, we were doing phenomenal science, we were extraordinarily lean, then COVID hit.”
Pandemic Pivot
During the pandemic, Providence pivoted from cancer to research and development on a potential COVID-19 vaccine. It was a decision Sorenson made more out of necessity than anything else.
“We weren’t trying to capitalize on a COVID rush. We were trying to keep the company intact,” he said. At the time, due to health restrictions around COVID-19, Providence’s staff would not have been able to carry out work or access their labs unless they were working on COVID-19-related research.
The company went on to develop a vaccine, claiming it was “one month behind Moderna.” Eventually, it partnered with Chinese biopharmaceutical company Everest Medicines, granting the company the license to develop and market its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in select territories in Asia. The partnership netted Providence $100 million USD ($137 million CAD) up front and up to $100 million USD in profit-sharing followed by royalties, according to statements released at the time. In 2024, amid waning demand for COVID-19 vaccines, Everest terminated its partnership with Providence, paying the company $4 million USD in accordance with their agreement.
Today, Providence remains privately held, with no institutional backers, according to Sorenson. It has, to date, raised $36.4 million CAD in dilutive capital, $30 million CAD in convertible debt, and $185 million CAD of non-dilutive capital mainly raised through licensing agreements, according to Sorenson.
“We have about 350 shareholders. They’re all accredited, high-net-worth individuals and folks that I’ve met through my sphere of influence,” he claimed. “It’s allowed us to be very mission-focused in what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Seeking that type of investment has been a conscious choice. One predicated on what Sorenson feels is a misalignment between his mission and the Canadian venture capital model.
“They consider it a success when somebody … gets acquired for $200 million by a US company. And you’re right, for that individual, it was a success. But was it a success for Canada? No. Not at all,” he said. “I did talk to institutional investors back in the day, and they’re not interested because I’m not interested in [going public]. I’m not interested in selling out. I’m trying to develop something that just doesn’t meet with their checkboxes.”
It Always Comes Back
Adam’s cancer did come back. Ten years after the initial diagnosis, his GBM returned, this time with leptomeningeal disease, a complication where cancer metastasizes to the brainstem and spinal fluid. In 2023, Sorenson says Adam was given two months to live.
Providence’s GBM vaccine was still experimental and working its way through the complex Health Canada drug approval process when Adam’s second diagnosis occurred. That prevented Adam from accessing his father’s vaccine in Canada, so the family planned to treat Adam in Mexico, where approval for the experimental treatment would be quicker. Just days prior to departing, a bureaucratic mix-up resulted in the vaccine’s import permit being denied.
“We looked at what it would take us to correct that mistake, and it was a couple of months, ” Sorenson said. “We didn’t feel my son had a couple of months to live.”
So Sorenson did something that perhaps any parent would in his position: he went to his office, took Providence’s vaccine from the freezer, and treated Adam at home.
“We looked at what it would take us to correct that mistake, and it was a couple of months. We didn’t feel my son had a couple of months to live.”
The shot Sorenson administered to his son used lipid nanoparticle technology—fat-based vesicles that can deliver mRNA to cells—to deliver an immunotherapy that would train Adam’s immune system to target cancer cells and attack the tumour.
The shot wasn’t approved by Health Canada. It hadn’t been peer reviewed. There was no official evidence proving its efficacy at the time beyond Providence’s own internal studies. Sorenson went ahead, anyway.
Sorenson and Adam, by then in his early 20s, sat down and filmed a 30-minute video, outlining the procedure, Adam’s motivation for taking it, and establishing consent, Adam said. Then, he took the injection.
“I was more than willing to try this, but with all the rules and legal issues, it would have taken too long, and I wouldn’t have been able to have this shot at surviving,” Adam told BetaKit. “Even the doctors were saying I was only expected to live two to four months. I wasn’t supposed to live very long at all.”
“I don’t think he and I were the ones who thought it was going to work, but it did,” Sorenson recalled
BetaKit wasn’t able to verify the efficacy of Sorenson’s vaccine at the time, so it remains unclear to what degree the treatment played a role in Adam’s improvement. Terminal cancer prognoses can often vary significantly.
Sorenson is clear that he made the decision to administer the vaccine himself, without informing the broader Providence leadership or Health Canada. After the fact, he said he authored a 13-page disclosure report to Health Canada about the incident.
BetaKit reached out to Health Canada to confirm whether they had received Sorenson’s report and what the potential consequences are of such an unconventional action. Due to privacy regulations, Health Canada could neither confirm nor deny whether it had received such a report. A spokesperson did comment on potential outcomes, however, saying that Health Canada’s compliance and enforcement approach is risk-based.
“If non-compliance is identified, Health Canada determines the most appropriate response based on the risk they may pose to the public. Actions are … guided by the specific facts and circumstances of each case.”
Streamlining a future
Fast forward three years, and Adam is alive and well. He still has cancer, and until recently he was still receiving regular vaccinations like the one his father smuggled out for him in 2023, though they have since been administered under compassionate care use by Health Canada’s Open Label Individual Patient (OLIP) program, which allows patients with life-threatening or serious conditions to access to drugs currently not authorized by Health Canada. He’s stable enough that he’s finished his first semester at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), where he’s studying cabinetry.
“Things are looking a lot better now,” Adam said. “When you look at the MRI results, a lot of the cancer had shrunk.”
Following Sorenson’s unconventional treatment of his son, Providence has secured single patient treatment approval, and is currently working with the University of Toronto affiliated University Health Network (UHN) to engage in formal trials for the precision vaccine.
Providence’s real focus has been in Australia, where Sorenson says the regulatory framework around compassionate care is more nimble and where early-stage drug development is more accessible. Under Australia’s Special Access Scheme (SAS)—a program similar to Canada’s OLIP—clinicians with willing patients and an ethics approval need only notify the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), and can often begin treatment in as little as two weeks. Under OLIP, that process is much more arduous, often requiring physicians to jump through hoops similar to a full Phase 1 clinical trial.
“One of the key differences between Canada and Australia is that … compassionate access is considered healthcare in Australia. Decisions reside with the doctors and the hospitals,” Sorenson said. “In Canada, it’s considered drug development, and it resides with Health Canada.”
That ease of access has led Sorenson and Providence to bring much of its work down under, developing a series of clinical trials for a precision vaccine called PaedNEO-VAX that targets advanced and treatment-resistant brain tumours in pediatric patients. Those trials are jointly funded under a partnership with the Australia New Zealand Children’s Hematology/Oncology Group.
The company also claims it has been involved in just under 20 instances of compassionate use care via Australia’s SAS program. Access to those records is not publicly available in Australia, so BetaKit has not been able to independently verify those claims.
Commercial viability
On the commercial and research side, Sorenson sees even further advantages to taking his work overseas, saying that the Australian model is one that enables smaller biopharmaceutical companies like his to compete. In Australia, companies undergoing Phase 1 trials—the first step in approving a drug for human use—are not required to use Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) materials (materials that adhere to Health Canada and the FDA’s manufacturing standards), which can cost millions of dollars and create barriers for startups. Instead, companies can use similar materials that pass proper testing but are significantly cheaper.
He also notes that there is a higher financial incentive to validating Providence’s tech in the southern hemisphere, including tax rebates and government funding for research trials.
“Your speed to be able to start that Phase 1 trial, your cost of being able to start that Phase 1 trial, and the tax incentives to run that trial in Australia are all completely superior to Canada in every way and shape,” Sorenson said.
Health Canada spokesperson André Gagnon addressed those comments, telling BetaKit that Canada’s framework “emphasizes consistent national standards, independent regulatory oversight, and accountability to the public.’ Gagnon said Health Canada has been recognized by the World Health Organization for its high standards relating to medicinal products.
“Your speed to be able to start that Phase 1 trial, your cost of being able to start that Phase 1 trial, and the tax incentives to run that trial in Australia are all completely superior to Canada in every way and shape.”
Gagnon also outlined that Health Canada has a Special Access Program (SAP), a program described as similar to Australia’s SAS.
“Requests are reviewed to confirm appropriate clinical justification and consideration of patient safety, and the SAP processes a high volume of requests each year,” Gagnon said. “However, drugs accessed through SAP do not go through the same benefit-risk assessment as approved drugs.”
Leveraging what Sorenson sees as Australia’s advantages, as well as the promise of monetizing Providence’s vaccines (something he says he will implement a price cap on to ensure accessibility, particularly regarding the pediatric brain cancer treatments), Sorenson believes the company has a path to becoming commercially self-sustaining over the next few years.
“We are about two-and-a-half years away from being commercial with our products, and we’re probably about six months away from being commercial with our technology,” Sorenson said. “My plan over this year is to raise $80 million, and over the next three years to be a self-sustaining commercial company.”
To meet that $80 million milestone, Sorenson knows he’ll need to expand his pool of investors to include establishment VC. It’s a change he says he’s comfortable with if it means expanding the availability of the drugs he believes have given his son his life back. “The original mission of the company was to have something for Adam if he needed it. I’ve done that,” he said. “The new mission is to make that same blessing available to as many people fighting cancer as I can. To do this, I need to open up to institutional investors, but we will be selective—as I expect they will be, too—in making sure our visions are aligned.”
BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.
Feature image courtesy Brad Sorenson.