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Avidis names new CEO and management committee members
New team will focus on
immunotherapeutics using Avidis' proprietary Heptafold(R) technology
Clermont Ferrand, France, July
6, 2004 -- Immunotherapeutics specialist Avidis announces today the
appointment to its management committee of François Miceli, Chief Executive
Officer, Dr Fergal Hill, Executive Director, Research and intellectual
Property, and Dr Michel Wurm, Executive Director of Business and Preclinical
Development.
"These new appointments follow a number of deals concluded with big players in the vaccine market, excellent laboratory results, and a small injection of capital," said Miceli. "Avidis is now focused on the immunotherapy potential of our Heptafold(R) platform where the business outlook is extremely promising, and we look forward to announcing good progress in this field in the months to come." The company has recently raised Euro 1.5 million from CHP a local privately held venture fund and won collaboration agreements with leading but undisclosed companies in the field of monoclonal antibody-based therapeutics and animal vaccines, as well as with internationally respected academic partners. François Miceli, 39, has had 15 years' experience in the healthcare industry with a combination of scientific and business management expertise. Most recently, François was COO of LMD Pharmacognosie and led the company from start up to phase II. Prior to this, he served as director of operations for Synbiotics Europe, a mid size animal health company and spin-off from Merial. Miceli took part in the setting up of IDEXX Laboratories in Europe, where he served successively as manager of a business unit, general manager of the French subsidiary and as CEO, built from scratch the Italian subsidiary. Within IDEXX, François Miceli initiated the acquisition of a Swedish diagnostic company Ubitech AB. He is an alumnus of the INSEAD EP, and a board member of Spinelix SA. Fergal Hill, 41, qualified in medicine from Cambridge University and after clinical posts in medicine and surgery, was a staff scientist in the group of Sir Aaron Klug (Nobel Prize 1982) at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK and later in the group of Wilhelm Ansorge, the principal founder of LION Biosciences, at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany. Hill co-founded Avidis in September 2000. He is the author of numerous papers in the fields of nucleic acid and protein chemistry and an inventor of several patents, including the key technologies of Avidis.
Michel Wurm, 52, qualified in
medicine from Clermont-Ferrand. He joined Avidis in April 2002 as Executive
Head of Business Development. He has sixteen years of managerial experience in
drug development, in business intelligence and deal-making. He has elaborated
and carried out numerous pharmaceutical development programs, from
pre-clinical through to registration for cardiovascular, metabolic and
dermatological drugs and has a long experience in negotiating deals in the
biotech/healthcare industry.
About Avidis
Avidis aims to create
immunotherapeutics through its unique protein engineering technology platform,
Heptafold(R). The company was founded in 2000 as a spin-off from the Medical
Research Council, UK and Cambridge University, UK. Avidis' technology enables
immunization without adjuvants and thus the creation of new vaccines and
immunotherapeutics. Research partners include the CNRS unit "Architecture
et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques" (Marseille, France), the
National Institute for Medical Research (Mill Hill, London, UK), and Harvard
Medical School (Boston, USA) and Hôpital Universitaire de Genève (Geneva,
Switzerland).
--
Nicolas Isla
ANDREW LLOYD & ASSOCIATES
Tel: +44-1273 675100
Fax: +44-1273 675400 55 rue Boissonade 75014 Paris FRANCE Tel: +33-1 56 54 07 00 Fax: +33-1 56 54 07 01
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