DAIX, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News:
Inventiva (Paris:IVA)(Euronext Paris - FR0013233012 – IVA), a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies, particularly to treat fibrosis, announced today the appointment Dr Nanna Lüneborg to the board of Inventiva, succeeding Mr Philippe Goupit. With this appointment, Inventiva’s Board of Directors comprises eight directors (three women and five men), including four independent directors.
Nanna Lüneborg is a Principal of Novo Ventures, a leading global life science investor, which participated in the IPO of Inventiva in February 2017. Novo Ventures is part of Novo A/S, the holding and investment company of the Novo Nordisk foundation.
Nanna Lüneborg has a background in medical research and life science venture capital. She completed her undergraduate studies at University of Oxford, PhD in Neuroscience from University College London, and MBA from the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining Novo A/S, she was part of the life science investment team at Apposite Capital, a London-based venture capital firm specialising in healthcare. In 2012, she joined Novo A/S, where she has been part of both the seed and venture investment teams. She has previous board experience from a range of biotech companies spanning start-up to late stage development, most recently from the board of ObsEva, which completed an IPO on NASDAQ earlier this year. She currently serves on the boards of Orphazyme and Epsilon-3 Bio, in addition to Inventiva.
“On behalf of the Board of Directors and the Company as a whole, we warmly thank Philippe for his contribution to Inventiva’s development and wish him every success in his future projects,” commented Frédéric Cren, Chairman and CEO of Inventiva. “To succeed him, we are very pleased to welcome Nanna to our Board of Directors. Nanna’s experience will be valuable at this key stage in our development with the results of three clinical trials expected in 2018. We look forward to the advice and contribution she will bring.”
“I am very pleased to be joining Inventiva’s Board of Directors. Inventiva has a promising portfolio of advanced products in fields that are stirring up significant interest in the pharmaceuticals industry. Being able to demonstrate positive results in NASH1, systemic sclerosis and MPS VI would constitute a major step forward for millions of patients who are still not receiving effective treatment,” added Dr Lüneborg. “This is an exciting time for the Company. Following the successful IPO, which gives it the financial means to realise its ambitions, I look forward to working in close collaboration with Inventiva’s Board of Directors and management team as the company moves ahead in the next key stages of its development.
About Novo Ventures:
Novo Ventures is part of Novo A/S, a private limited liability company, wholly owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The company is the holding company in the Novo Group and is responsible for managing the assets of the Foundation. Besides being the major shareholder in the Novo Group companies, including Novo Nordisk A/S and Novozymes A/S, Novo A/S provides seed and venture capital to development-stage companies, takes significant ownership positions in well-established companies within the life sciences and manages a broad portfolio of financial assets. It has offices in Copenhagen, San Francisco, Boston and London with a team of scientific and commercial experts actively supporting a portfolio of projects and companies. For further information visit www.novo.dk.
1 Non-Alcoholic Steatotic Hepatitis
About Inventiva: www.inventivapharma.com
Inventiva is a biopharmaceutical company specialized in the development of drugs interacting with nuclear receptors, transcription factors and epigenetic modulators. Inventiva’s research engine opens up novel breakthrough therapies against fibrotic diseases, cancers and orphan diseases with substantial unmet medical needs.
IVA337, its lead product, is an anti-fibrotic treatment with a strong action mechanism permitting the activation of all three alpha, gamma and delta PPARs (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors), which play key roles in controlling the fibrotic process. Its anti-fibrotic action targets two initial indications with substantial unmet medical need: NASH, a severe and increasingly prevalent liver disease already affecting over 30 million people in the United States, and systemic sclerosis, a disease with a very high mortality rate and for which there is no approved treatment to date.
Inventiva is also developing in parallel, a second clinical product, IVA336, which is a treatment for three different forms of mucopolysaccharidosis: MPS I or Hurler-Scheie syndrome, MPS II or Hunter syndrome and MPS VI also known as Maroteaux-Lamy syndrome. Inventiva has a preclinical stage oncology portfolio.
Inventiva benefits from partnerships with world-leading research entities such as the Institut Curie. Two strategic commercial partnerships, one of which is at clinical stage, have also been developed with AbbVie and Boehringer Ingelheim, making Inventiva eligible for preclinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, in addition to royalties on the products resulting from the partnerships.
Inventiva employs over 100 highly qualified employees and owns state-of-the-art R&D facilities near Dijon, acquired from the international pharmaceutical group Abbott. The Company owns, a proprietary chemical library of over 240,000 molecules as well as integrated biology, chemistry, ADME and pharmacology platforms.