Zurich, Switzerland, April 7, 2010
Covagen, an ETH Zurich spin-off company pioneering the development of a novel class of
protein therapeutics (Fynomers), announced today that it has further strengthened its
Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which will be expanded by the addition of Dr. Thierry
Hercend.
Dr. Thierry Hercend (MD, Ph.D.) has over 30 years of both academic and pharmaceutical
experience in various therapeutic areas including oncology and inflammatory diseases. Since
2006, Dr. Thierry Hercend has been a Venture Partner at Edmond de Rothschild Investment
Partners (EdRIP). He is the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the biotechnology
companies Cytomics Pharmaceuticals (Orsay, France) and Genticel (Innopole, France), and a
member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Noxxon (Berlin, Germany). From 2002 until 2005,
Dr. Hercend was Vice President in charge of the oncology therapeutic area at Aventis. From
1998 to 2002, he was Vice President of Research, Europe, at Vertex Pharmaceuticals
(Cambridge, US). Previously, Dr. Hercend was Head of Research and Development for the
Laboratory of Plasma Fractionation and Biotechnology (LFB) and was in various executive R&D
positions with Roussel-Uclaf (Romainville, France). Prior to joining the pharmaceutical
industry, Dr. Hercend was Head of the Hemato-Immunology laboratories of the Gustave
Roussy Cancer Institute (Villejuif, France), Director of the Inserm unit U333 dedicated to
tumor immunology and a Professor of Immunology at the Medical Faculty of Paris XI
University. He has authored more than 120 publications in oncology, auto-immune diseases
and transplantation.
“We are very proud that we were able to attract Dr. Hercend to our Scientific Advisory Board
and are looking forward to working with him”, said Dr. Julian Bertschinger, CEO of Covagen.
“He will be very valuable for the further development of Covagen.”
About Covagen:
Covagen develops next generation protein drugs for the treatment of inflammatory diseases
and cancer by using its proprietary protein engineering technology, which has been developed
at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Covagen's innovative platform comprises the recently developed
Covalent DNA Display technology and a novel single domain protein scaffold, which - in
analogy to antibodies - can be engineered to yield high affinity binding proteins called
Fynomers that can be used for therapeutic applications. In addition, the modular structure of
Covagen's Fynomers and its favorable biophysical properties potentially allow for treatment
modalities that are difficult or impossible to be exploited with antibodies. For more
information, please visit http://www.covagen.com.
