Pierre d’EPENOUX

Having held strategy and business development positions within various healthcare world leaders in Asia and Europe, I am today Chief Executive Officer at ImCheck Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that designs and develops a new generation of immunotherapy antibodies discovered by Professor Daniel Olive at the Paoli-Calmettes Institute. These new antibodies are positioned at the crossroads of two immunology fields with high potential: the γ9δ2 T killer lymphocytes, and a novel superfamily of immunomodulators, butyrophilins. Due to their novel mechanism of action, in particular their ability to simultaneously modulate innate and adaptive immunity, our activating antibodies may be superior to existing immune checkpoint inhibitors and, when used in combination, they may overcome resistance to these agents. Finally, beyond cancer, we have demonstrated in preclinical studies that, in their inhibitory version, our antibodies could also improve the treatment of several autoimmune diseases.

To date, ImCheck has raised €154 million from top tier European and American investors and we are very encouraged by the first clinical data of our drug candidate ICT01.

As a co-founder of Marseille Immunopole, ImCheck is a perfect symbol of our cluster’s mission: strengthen Marseille’s leadership in immunotherapy by combining the best of immunology research with sound expertise in research and development of both therapeutic antibodies and diagnostics assays in immuno-oncology, and an utterly international ambition.