Evox Therapeutics, a specialist exosome therapeutics company, announced the appointment of Dr Antonin de Fougerolles as CEO, taking over from acting CEO Dr Per Lundin.
Fougerolles will help to drive Evox towards its goal of creating a world-leading platform technology for the translation of exosome therapeutics for the treatment of serious, life-threatening diseases.
Lundin will continue in his role as COO of Evox with oversight for the operational aspects of the business as well as continuing to advance and expand Evox’s leading intellectual property estate.
Dr Per Lundin, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Evox, said: “Evox Therapeutics is at an exciting point in its development. After a thorough selection process, I am incredibly pleased that Tony is joining the team as we continue to develop Evox into the world’s leading exosome therapeutics company.”
“Tony has an outstanding track record in progressing products through the pipeline and a strong scientific understanding. He has also been integral to his previous companies’ deal-making success and we are excited for him to bring such extensive experience to Evox.”
“His deep knowledge of the industry will no doubt prove invaluable as we move forward with a platform that can offer new treatment options for patients suffering from life-threatening diseases with a significant unmet medical need.”
Fougerolles is a respected life sciences executive with more than 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.
He has a strong background in successfully developing and advancing multiple different transformative therapeutic drug platforms in both the nucleic acid and biologics space and has held various Chief Scientific Officer positions since 2010.
During this time, his in-depth expertise in drug development has led to the progression of multiple assets through clinical trials, as well as playing a key role in the negotiation of major partnerships.
Fougerolles joins from Ablynx, where he held the role of Chief Scientific Officer for four years. At Ablynx, he had a significant role in advancing and expanding the pipeline to include more than 45 single domain antibody programmes, forming multiple major new partnerships and helping prepare the submission of a Marketing Authorisation Application to the European Medicines Agency to support approval and commercialisation of Ablynx’s caplacizumab for the treatment of acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura.
Prior to this, he was Chief Scientific Officer of Moderna Therapeutics, here he was instrumental in helping build out Moderna’s early pipeline, platform and intellectual property estate, as well as helping secure a $240 million upfront deal with AstraZeneca with additional milestones, including $180 million in technical milestones, commercial milestones and high single to double digit royalties.
He also held the position of Chief Scientific Officer at Tolerx from 2010-2011 working on immunomodulatory antibodies and for the seven years prior was at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, as VP of Research, he helped build the pipeline and advance RNAi as a new drug modality.
Prior to that, Fougerolles worked as a researcher at Biogen and the University of Cambridge Wellcome Trust Immunology Unit.
Fougerolles holds a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology & Immunology from McGill University, Canada and a PhD in Immunology from Harvard University.
He is an author on more than 60 publications, an inventor on more than 80 issued US patents and has been Principal Investigator on greater than $80 million in grant funding.
Dr Tony de Fougerolles, said: “having worked as a Chief Scientific Officer for seven years, I appreciate the fine balance between developing new drug platforms, advancing a therapeutic pipeline, and building the business.”
“The opportunity to further develop and progress Evox’s unique proprietary exosome drug platform is a very exciting prospect, as exosomes are the natural way that cells communicate to each other and exchange proteins and nucleic acids. I strongly believe that by harnessing this natural process, exosome-based drugs have the potential to address some of the limitations of protein, antibody and nucleic acid-based therapies by enabling delivery to cells and tissues that are currently out of reach.”
“I believe we can progress through the clinic an entirely novel class of biotherapeutics and I look forward to working with Per and the rest of the Board to develop therapies with a potentially transformative impact on the lives of patients suffering from severe illnesses.”
