Innate Pharma and TRANSGENE Announce the Creation of Platine Pharma Services, a New Company Specialized in Immunomonitoring Services
"With Platine, Innate Pharma and Transgene combine 40 years of expertise in the field of immunotherapeutics and measure of cellular response. As founders and first clients, we are convinced of the relevance and added-value of Platine", said Hervé Brailly, CEO of Innate Pharma. Philippe Archinard, Chairman and CEO of Transgene, added: "We would like to thank all the collaborative partners as well as the public funding bodies which contributed to the creation of Platine. It is now up to Platine's team to continue to deliver".
Jacques Berger, previously President of Sanofi-Pasteur France, independent Chairman of the Board of Platine Pharma Services, said: "With a broad, proven offer, we aim at becoming a European leader in immunomonitoring. We can respond to requests for specific as well as routine tests, from the definition of analytical needs to data analysis. This is a high value added offer in the context of a still fragmented European market".
About Platine Pharma Services:
Platine Pharma Services offers immunomonitoring services to the healthcare industry for the preclinical and clinical development of prophylactic and therapeutic drug candidates, notably those with immune modulation activity such as vaccines, monoclonal antibodies or cytokines.
Based in Lyon, in the cluster for infectious diseases, Platine offers flexible and integrated services, from advisory to set up of immunomonitoring, routine or "taylor made", tests. The company starts with a dozen employees and three platforms in biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology as well as a comprehensive panel of equipment, including flow cytometry, ELISPOT and ELISA. For its founders and first clients, Innate Pharma and Transgene, Platine currently runs immunomonitoring services for IPH 21, a monoclonal antibody program developed by Innate Pharma, and for TG4040, a therapeutic vaccine developed by Transgene.
Platine focuses on the European market, which is estimated to be in the region of 100-200 million euros, growing at 15% per annum. The growth drivers of the market are the increasing number of products being developed as well as the trend towards outsourcing of this activity by biopharmaceutical players.
More information can be found at www.platine-lab.com.
About the creation of Platine Pharma Services:
The creation of Platine originates from the will of Innate Pharma and Transgene to pool internal resources and costs incurred for their own immunomonitoring needs.
A collaborative program was set up in 2008 by the two partners, together with academic laboratories (Inserm and Centre Léon-Bérard, Lyon, France) and Grenoble-based ImmunID. This program was supported by the Lyonbiopôle cluster and benefited from local and national public funding. A team and a platform of services were put together during the three-year of collaborative work. Services rendered to Innate Pharma and Transgene for their own preclinical and clinical use enabled the building and validation of a sound expertise in the field of immunomonitoring.
About Innate Pharma:
Innate Pharma S.A. is a biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class immunotherapy drugs for cancer and inflammatory diseases.
The Company specializes in the development of new monoclonal antibodies targeting receptors and pathways controlling the activation of innate immunity cells. Its most advanced drug-candidate is IPH 2101, an anti-KIR monoclonal antibody potentiating NK cells activation currently in Phase II clinical trials in hematologic cancers. Two of its antibody programs in chronic inflammation are out-licensed to Novo Nordisk A/S.
Innate Pharma's key expertise is in immunopharmacology and antibody technology. The Company has implemented in-house a large panel of molecular and cellular assays and in vivo models for assessing the pharmacodynamics and pharmacotoxicology of drug candidates. In addition, Innate Pharma has access to a very large set of unique research tools in cellular immunology through its worldwide network of scientific collaborations.
Incorporated in 1999 and listed on NYSE-Euronext in Paris in 2006, Innate Pharma is based in Marseilles, France, and had 85 employees as at March 31, 2011.
Learn more about Innate Pharma at www.innate-pharma.com.
About Transgene:
Transgene, a member of the Institut Mérieux Group, is a publicly traded French biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of therapeutic vaccines and immunotherapeutic products in oncology and infectious diseases and has five compounds in clinical development: TG4010 and JX-594/TG6006 having completed initial Phase II trials, TG4001 in Phase IIb trial, TG4040 in Phase II trial and TG4023 in Phase I trial. Transgene has concluded strategic agreements for the development of two of its immunotherapy products: an option agreement with Novartis for the development of TG4010 to treat various cancers; and, an in-licensing agreement with US-based Jennerex Biotherapeutics, Inc., to develop and market JX-594/TG6006, an oncolytic product. Transgene also has bio-manufacturing capacities for viral-based products. Additional information about Transgene is available at www.transgene.fr.
1 Immunomonitoring consists in the monitoring (cellular, molecular, biochemical) and characterization of an immune response after a given treatment. It is a very important step for the defining of the pharmacodynamic effect, the mechanistic properties, the therapeutic target or the safety profile of a drug candidate.
Samuel Salot, Chief Operating Officer
Platine Pharma Services
Bâtiment Domilyon - Centre d'infectiologie
321 avenue Jean Jaurès, 69007 Lyon Gerland
Tel : +33 (0)4 37 70 87 00
Mail : samuel.salot@platine-lab.com