News Releases
Receives Second U.S. Patent Approval

Calgary, AB, October 24, 2000 --- Oncolytics Biotech Inc.(TSE: ONC) reported today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Patent 6,136,307 to the Company effective October 24, 2000. The patent covers the reovirus for pharmaceutical use in the treatment of cellular proliferative disorders in mammals.

"The issuance of this patent provides us with a broadened proprietary position with respect to the use of the reovirus as a therapeutic for the treatment of cancer as well as other cellular proliferative disorders", said Dr. Matt Coffey, Vice President Product Development " The additional patent protection is consistent with our strategic objective of solidifying our intellectual property platform. Each additional patent issuance provides an important element of intellectual property protection."

Oncolytics is a Calgary-based biotechnology company whose focus is the development of the reovirus known as REOLYSIN® as a potential cancer therapeutic. The human reovirus infects and kills cancer cells with an activated Ras pathway. Ras is an important component of a pathway controlling normal growth and differentiation of a cell, and when activated, may account for a large proportion of all human tumors. Researchers believe that targeting this pathway could have broad potential in the treatment of many cancers. Oncolytics researchers demonstrated that reovirus was selectively able to kill cancer cells with this particular activation and successfully demonstrated that the virus could kill human cancer cells in vitro derived from breast, prostate, pancreatic and brain tumors, as well as being able to treat tumors successfully in a number of animal models. Oncolytics initiated its Phase I clinical trial on REOLYSIN® in June 2000.

This release contains certain forward-looking statements which involve known and unknown risks, delays, uncertainties and other factors not under the Company's control which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from the results, performance or expectations implied by these forward-looking statements.