egle logo

Modulating Treg Cells
to Balance Immunity

Egle Therapeutics has been founded with a vision to become a game changer in the field of immunomodulating T-regulatory cells (Tregs) through the unique concept of Tregs’ starving while specifically targeting the most immunosuppressive ones.

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About Us

According to Greek poet Hesiod, Aglaea (Egle) was the youngest of the Zeus Daughters Charites, symbolizing beauty, splendor, glory, and magnificence, all essential attributes to enlighten hope for patients suffering from severe diseases and to deploy unprecedent remarkable science to meet the unmet.

Inspired by the myth of Aglaea, Egle Therapeutics has been built with the sole driver of assembling the most notable scientific expertise with genuine talents to bring well-being to the patient’s community.

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Who we Are

Established in early 2020, as a spin-out of Institut Curie by Luc Boblet, serial biotech entrepreneur, and Dr Eliane Piaggio PhD, Director of the Translational Immunotherapy Team at Institut Curie, Egle Therapeutics is developing first-in-class immunotherapies targeting suppressor regulatory T cells (Tregs) for oncology and autoimmune diseases.

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Our Science

Egle’s scientific foundations benefits from decades of breakthrough academic research leading to unprecedented computational based IL-2 modified variants and a unique translational-based target discovery platform unveiling novel therapeutic Treg targets.

The key element of Egle’s core approach leverages of unifying therapeutic potentials of antibody specific targeting combined with the selective mechanism of action of modified cytokine for arming or disarming the most immunosuppressive Tregs to restore the immune response.

Egle deploys its first-in-class technology platforms to building a furnished drug pipeline of novel immunotherapies against Tregs with tremendous potential in the oncology and auto-immunity fields.

Our Pipeline

Pipeline

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Leadership

Photo of Pejvack Motlagh

Pejvack Motlagh MD, MSc

Chief Medical Officer

A seasoned clinical development executive who has previously held overall responsibility for candidate development from first in human through registrational studies, brings to Egle Therapeutics the appropriate expertise and successful drug development experience. As Chief Medical Officer, he will be responsible for advancing Egle’s pipeline towards the clinic and notably EGL-001 (a Treg-selective anti-CTLA4-IL-2m) in oncology and EGL-003 (a non-targeted IL-2 Treg engager) in auto-immune diseases. Prior to Egle Therapeutics, Dr. Motlagh was Chief Medical Officer at Mablink, an ADC biotech company, where through the establishment of a differentiating clinical development plan he contributed to the value creation leading to an acquisition by Eli Lilly. Previously, he held global positions at leading oncology companies such as GSK, Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca, where he was instrumental in the transition of several compounds towards the late clinical development phases of now approved drugs. At Boehringer Ingelheim, he oversaw, managed and prioritized their whole IO portfolio.

Photo of Monica Gostissa

Monica Gostissa Ph.D

Chief Scientific Officer

  • 20+ years of research experience in oncology, immunology and immuno-oncology in academic and industry settings
  • 10 years in biotech R&D leadership roles, with extensive expertise in drug discovery from target identification and validation to IND submission
  • Former Vice President of Preclinical Sciences at Jounce Therapeutics and Director of Tumor Immunology and Imaging at 121 Bio/Agenus
  • PhD in Molecular Genetics from the International School for Advanced Studies (Trieste, Italy); post-doctoral studies at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School (Boston, US)
  • Recipient of several research awards and author of over 40 peer-reviewed publications
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Bernard Vanhove Ph.D

Chief Development Officer

  • CNRS Director of Research in Pharmacology and Biomedical Engineering
  • Author of > 125 peer reviewed articles in immunology over > 20 years of research in transplant immunology, autoimmunity and immuno-oncology. Recipient of the France Transplant Prize.
  • Former leader of the FP6 European network TRIAD (T cell Regulation in Autoimmune Disease)
  • Founder and former CEO of the biotech company Effimune, COO of Ose Immunotherapeutics, COO/CSO of Xenothera
  • Degree in Business Administration from Audencia Business School (Nantes, France)
  • PhD in Immunology from the University of Louvain (Belgium); post-doctoral studies in molecular biology at Sandoz International Research Collaboration Centre (Vienna, Austria)
Photo of Reno Winter

Reno Winter Ph.D

Chief Technical Officer

  • 10+ years in operationally leading and managing analytical & process development and external manufacturing activities. His expertise ranges from cell bank generation to drug substance and drug product manufacturing and supply.
  • Former Head of CMC for a clinical-stage biotech company in Germany and as CMC Lead for Baxter/Shire PLC in Austria on numerous Investigational New Drug programs.
  • Headed different teams to deliver and master all clinical trial-enabling CMC activities and actively contributed to numerous clinical trial applications and patents.
  • Reno is a trained biochemist and received his doctor’s degree in Natural Sciences from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.
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Board Members

Felice Verduyn - van Weegen

Partner at EQT Life Sciences

Felice Verduyn-van Weegen is a Partner at LSP and has joined the company early 2015. In addition to Egle therapeutics, Felice serves on the Boards of a.o. Vico therapeutics, Amolyt pharma, Evommune and AM-pharma. Prior to joining LSP, Felice was a consultant at McKinsey & Company with a primary focus on healthcare projects. Before McKinsey, she was a neuroscientist and statistical geneticist, working with the prestigious complex traits genetics group at the Broad Institute and Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, USA. Felice was awarded a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Psychology and a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from the VU University, Amsterdam. In addition, she was awarded an MBA degree from Columbia Business School, New York USA.

Vincent Brichard

Chief Executive Officer (Interim)

Vincent Brichard is Venture Partner at LSP. He was formerly Senior Vice President and member of the Executive Team of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and headed the Business Unit for Immunotherapeutics. He is member of scientific advisory boards and supervisory boards of several European life sciences companies active in the fields of immuno-oncology, vaccines and diagnostics. He authored more than a 100 research manuscripts in leading international journals. He studied medicine at the Louvain University in Brussels and Institute Curie in Paris, received his Ph.D. in tumor immunology at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Brussels and had the position of a Professor of Oncology at Louvain University, Brussels. He also holds an executive MBA from Harvard Business School.

Jean-François Morin

Investment Director at BPI-Innobio2

Jean-François Morin is an Investment Director covering venture capital investments in biotech and medical devices companies. Jean-François currently serves on the Boards of ONA Therapeutics, Sensorion and Orphalan. Prior to joining Bpifrance, he was a Financial Manager at CDC Entreprises, a Funds Management company where he was involved in structuring several investment funds and for the portfolio monitoring, mostly in Venture Capital. He is graduate from EDHEC Business School in France.

Halina Novak

Principal at Fund+

Halina Novak, PhD, is a Principal at Fund+. Halina brings extensive experience in technology innovation, investment and alliance management and is currently serving on multiple Biotech / MedTech boards across Europe. Formerly, Halina held several leadership positions at VIB, the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology and worked at the intersection between industry, pharma and academia, leading large multi-stakeholder collaborations. Notably, she headed the Tech Watch Program and established the Technology Innovation Lab, where unique strategies were developed to identify, invest in, and evaluate breakthrough life science technologies in collaboration with start-ups and pharma. Many of these early stage investments in disruptive tools have since revolutionised the Life Sciences. Halina started her career at Unilever on a fellowship that developed novel applications of industrial enzymes after having graduated from the University of Exeter with a PhD and BSc in Biological Sciences and Biological and Medicinal Chemistry, respectively.

John Celebi

Non Executive Director

John Celebi, MBA, has over 25 years of experience building innovative entrepreneurial biotechnology companies. He currently serves as President and CEO of Sensei Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ: SNSE), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of novel immunotherapies for cancer patients with unmet needs. Previously, Mr. Celebi served as the Chief Operating Officer of X4 Pharmaceuticals where he established and oversaw the company’s oncology business strategy. He also served as Chief Business Officer of Igenica Biotherapeutics, Inc., an immunotherapy company formed by The Column Group, 5AM Ventures, Orbimed, and Third Rock Ventures, where he established key academic and industry relationships, including with MedImmune. Mr. Celebi has extensive transactional and alliance management experience, having served as Vice President of Business Development, New Product Planning and Alliance Management at ArQule, Inc., where he played a central role in the formation of alliances with Roche, Daiichi-Sankyo, and Kyowa Hakko Kirin. Mr. Celebi was an early employee at Tularik, Inc., where he conducted drug discovery and basic research. Mr. Celebi received an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in biophysics from the University of California, San Diego.

Michel Detheux

Chairm and Independent Board Member

Michel has held the role of Chief Executive Officer at iTeos Therapeutics since the company’s inception in 2012. During his tenure, Michel has led the company from its origins to NASDAQ listing, raising $335MM in 2020 through a crossover round and IPO. More recently, he spearheaded the strategic collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline in 2021 to co-develop and co-commercialize iTeos’ differentiated anti-TIGIT antibody for a total value of $2B. He previously served as a director at Ludwig Cancer Research and worked in various scientific and business development roles at Ogeda (f/k/a Euroscreen). Dr. Detheux holds a degree of Bio-engineer and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Université Catholique de Louvain, and a business certificate from Solvay Business School.

Mojgan Hossein-Nia

Head of R&D Global Portfolio Strategy and Strategic Finance at Takeda

Mojgan is the Head of R&D Global Portfolio Strategy and Strategic Finance, Research and Development at Takeda. She joined the company in September 2017 and currently directs portfolio strategy and management across all therapeutic areas facilitating investment decisions and overseeing R&D governance process. Additionally, she manages enabling capabilities that support portfolio management including the center of operational performance and integrated portfolio/finance digital solutions. In previous roles, she led the R&D investor relations group and built up the R&D Partnership Office, which was created to manage the overall health of R&D’s pipeline partnerships and their integration into R&D processes.

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Board Observers

Dirk Reyn

Venture Partner at Bioqube

Dirk Reyn is a Pharmacist and MBA'er with International Marketing, Global Sales Management, Product Development, Crisis Management, Business Development and General Management/biotech CEO skills acquired in the international pharmaceutical industry over a period of more than 38 years in both big and small companies and in different continents. He was a key player in at least 6 major pharma licensing and M&A deals in his capacity as head of BD for Europe while working for JNJ. After his tenure in big pharma (Lilly and JNJ), he was start-up CEO and founder of different companies including Movetis (2006), a public (Euronext) biopharmaceutical spin-off company from Janssen Pharmaceutica that was acquired by Shire, Progress Pharma (2012) that worked on a GI asset (Lipid, Heidelberg) before it was acquired by Nestle, eTheRNA (2015), a mRNA technology spin-off from the Free University of Brussels, and Spectricity (2018), an Imec spin-off with the smallest spectrometer on the planet. He currently is one of the three Managing Partners of the Bioqube Factory Fund (2020), a specialized biotech investment Fund with 110 million under management. He is also President of Flanders.bio the organization of biotech companies in Flanders.

Elisa El Nouchi

Associate at BPI-Innobio2

Elisa El Nouchi is an Associate in the Life Sciences Investment team at Bpifrance. She currently serves on the Board of AlgoTherapeutix and has participated in multiple investments/refinancing through Bpifrance Funds. Prior to joining Bpifrance, she started her career in the M&A Department of a Specialty Pharmaceutical Company in Paris. She holds a PharmD from the Faculty of Pharmacy Paris-Saclay and a Master in Management from the ESSEC Business School.

Steven St. Peter

Managing Director at JDRF T1D Fund

Steven St. Peter joined the T1D Fund in November 2019. From 2012 until 2019, Steven was Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Aratana Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PETX), an animal health company focused on the licensing, development and commercialization of innovative therapeutics.

Steven was previously a Managing Director at MPM Capital in Boston where his investment scope included both venture and buyout transactions across the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries. His investment experience also includes positions at Apax Partners and The Carlyle Group. Over the past decades, Steven has founded, invested in and/or been involved with several life sciences companies including Align Technologies (NASDAQ: ALGN), Medpointe, ESP Pharma, SkinMedica, Omrix (NASDAQ: OMRI), Pharmathene (NYSE: PIP), Xanodyne, Syndax (NASDAQ: SNDX), EKR Therapeutics, Proteon (NASDAQ: PRTO), Rhythm (NASDAQ:RYTM) and others. Steven has served on the Executive Committee & Board of Directors of the New England Venture Capital Association and he has been active in a variety of other professional organizations.

Previously, Steven was Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Columbia University. He received his M.D. from Washington University and completed his residency and fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Kansas.

Investors

Partners

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We consider that today, companies play a vital role in the development of society and their duties go beyond their economic functions and legal requirements. That is why, we incorporate social, ethical and environmental commitments to our business performance.

To support the ambition of taking our ESG efforts to the next level,  we strive to comply with all relevant laws, standards, and guidelines, prioritize the well-being of our employees, and minimize our impact on the environment. We have high ethical standards and adhere to the highest levels of integrity in interaction with the patients, the biotechnology community, our employees and our shareholders. We aim to conduct business with companies that share our ethics and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights.

News

Sep
12
2024

EGLE Therapeutics Strengthens its Board of Directors with the Appointment of Michel Detheux, Ph.D, as Independent Chairman Board Member, and with the Appointment of Mojgan Hossein-Nia, Ph.D. as Board member representative of Takeda Ventures

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July
17
2024

Egle Therapeutics to share preclinical data for its first autoimmune disease program, EGL-003, with an oral presentation at the 2024 Promise of Interleukin-2 Therapy Meeting

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May
10
2024

EGLE Therapeutics Strengthens its Leadership Team with the Appointment of Pejvack Motlagh, MD, MSc, as Chief Medical Officer and its Board of Directors with Appointment of John Celebi, MBA, as Independent Board Member.

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April
04
2024

Egle Therapeutics to present novel immunocytokine preclinical data for EGL-001 with poster presentation at the 2024 AACR Annual Meeting.

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March
27
2024

Egle Therapeutics Strengthens its Leadership Team with the Appointment of Monica Gostissa, PhD, as Chief Scientific Officer and Reno Winter, PhD, as Chief Technical Officer.

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May
5
2022

Egle Therapeutics appoints Pierre Legault as Chairman and Board Member.

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Oct
22
2021

Egle Therapeutics raises 40 million € Series A to develop First-In-Class T-regulatory cells therapies based on Treg-starvers.

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Nov
26
2020

Egle Therapeutics Identifies First Novel Regulatory T-cell Targets in Research Alliance with Takeda.
Egle to receive R&D milestone payment and equity funding from Takeda.

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Jun
11
2020

Egle Therapeutics enters into a corporate strategic research alliance with Takeda to uncover novel tumor-specific regulatory T-cell targets and develop unique anti-suppressor-based immunotherapies.

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