Sophia Antipolis: TxCell names François Meyer as CEO

François Meyer’s pharma and biotech management experience will guide TxCell as it enters the most exciting phase of its development

TxCell moves into Phase IIb clinical development for Crohn’s disease and initiates clinical development of its second product candidate for rheumatoid arthritis.

TxCell SA, based in Sophia Antipolis, is a biotechnology company developing cell-based immuno-therapies for the treatment of severe chronic inflammatory diseases with high medical need.

“The appointment of François is a timely and important step in securing the leadership and management structure of the company, as we prepare to further the development of our lead product candidate for the treatment of refractory Crohn’s disease patients into PhIIb and move our second product candidate into a PhI/II clinical trial for the treatment of refractory rheumatoid arthritis patients,” said Marc Lemaire, chairman of the supervisory board of TxCell.

“François’ extensive experience in pharma and biotech will prove invaluable as TxCell pursues its strategy of building a leading company for novel treatments of severe chronic inflammatory diseases.”

“I have had the opportunity for an in-depth assessment of the company’s technology platform and I fully appreciate its unique potential,” said François Meyer.

“Most importantly, the first clinical data observed in the PhI/II study in refractory Crohn’s disease patients, a very challenging patient population, is very appealing.

The company is now entering the most exciting phase of its development and that is to confirm these initial findings with a controlled PhIIb study.

Dr. François Meyer, PhD, has more than 25 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology experience. During the early part of his career, he held various executive positions in R&D at Ciba-Geigy Pharma, where he headed the Molecular  Genetics department in the newly formed Biotechnology division and at Sandoz Pharma, where he led the Gene and Cell Therapy business.

After joining Rhone Poulenc Rorer in 1996, where he first headed R&D at Gencell, a biotechnology division of Rhone Poulenc Rorer, he was promoted to head of Global Research in 1998 and became head of R&D at Aventis Phama, France after the merger with Hoechst in 2000. Lately he was CEO of Centelion until 2006, a biopharmaceutical affiliate company of Aventis Pharma.

He has been member of the board of directors of several privately owned biopharmaceutical companies in the US and in Europe and is currently member of the supervisory board of Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (NL). He graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ), in Zurich. He received his Ph.D. from the Institute for Molecular Biology at the University of Zurich.

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