(Oxford, UK) 1st February 2010. Immunocore Limited, the Oxford-based pioneer of T cell receptor technology, announces the appointment of Dr Jonathan Knowles to the Board as a non-executive director with immediate effect.
Dr. Knowles has had a distinguished career in academia and in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr Knowles stepped down from his executive positions at the end of 2009 and this is one of the first non executive positions he has taken up.
Dr Knowles held the position of President of Group Research and Member of the Executive Committee at F.Hoffman-LaRoche Limited, Basel, Switzerland for 12 years. He also served as a Board member at Genentech Inc for over ten years and was a Member of the Board of Chugai Pharmaceuticals, Tokyo, Japan. Prior to joining Roche in 1997, Dr Knowles was Research Director, Glaxo Wellcome Europe.
Dr Knowles has also served as Chairman of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) research Directors Group. He was instrumental in creating the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and was the first Chairman of the Board of IMI (a Joint Undertaking with the EU Commission), He is Chairman of the Hever Group, Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, a Distinguished Professor at the University of Helsinki, Finland, holds a visiting chair at the University of Oxford, and is a William Pitt Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge.
Commenting on the appointment, Nicholas Cross, Chairman of Immunocore, said: “We are delighted that someone as distinguished as Jonathan has chosen to become a director of Immunocore as the company moves into clinical development. He will provide us with invaluable advice on our unique T cell receptor pipeline in the years to come.”
Commenting, Dr Knowles said: “Immunocore has a truly revolutionary new technology, with the potential to provide novel and highly effective medicines for serious diseases such as cancer. I am very excited at becoming part of the Immunocore team.”
About Immunocore
Immunocore Limited is a privately owned, UK based biotechnology company developing a highly innovative platform technology that generates novel drugs called ImmTACs for the treatment of cancer and viral infection. ImmTACs (Immune mobilising mTCRs against cancer) combine the ability of the T Cell Receptor (TCR) to target diseased cells based on intracellular protein alterations with an extremely potent effector mechanism that recruits and activates killer T cells of the patient’s immune system to destroy the targeted cell. Immunocore has generated a number of ImmTAC reagents that are highly active against a range of currently difficult to treat cancers. Immunocore’s most advanced ImmTAC reagent, IMCgp100 for malignant melanoma is expected to commence clinical testing in late 2010. More information can be found at http://www.Immunocore.com
