ImCheck Therapeutics, an emerging biopharmaceutical company developing novel immune modulators against cancer and auto-immune diseases, announced today the appointment of René Hoet, PhD, as its Chief Scientific Officer. René Hoet is a molecular immunologist with over 20 years’ experience in antibody discovery and development. Over the course of his career, he has held leadership positions in antibody discovery and development at Bayer, Genmab, and Dyax.
Before joining ImCheck, René spent 8 years at Bayer AG as Vice President Biologics Research, where his team was responsible for antibody lead discovery and optimization. Between 2008-2010, he was a member of the management team at Genmab and as Sr. Director Research led the team Product Related Research, Scientific Communication & Translational Research. Together with his team, he ran the antibody discovery programs and actively supported Genmab’s clinical antibody programs.
René started his industrial career at Target Quest (acquired by Dyax in 1999) where his last position was Vice President Research and Operational Manager of Dyax SA. He was the driving force for internal antibody lead discovery as well as external collaborations and supported the out-licensing of Dyax’ antibody phage libraries. From these libraries, 3 antibodies have been approved by the FDA & EMA and over 10 antibodies from varies companies are currently in clinical trials.
René Hoet is also Professor Biopharmaceutics at the University of Maastricht, Netherlands, guiding researchers to use antibodies to bridge the gap between academic research and pharmaceutical applications.
“We are delighted to welcome René, an antibody discovery and development thought-leader, to ImCheck as our Chief Scientific Officer. We will benefit from his extensive experience as we advance our two lead antibody programs towards the clinic by 2020. René will also play an important role as we further develop our novel discovery research programs based on our insights into two novel families of immune checkpoint modulators,” said Pierre d’Epenoux, CEO of ImCheck Therapeutics.
“I am very excited to join ImCheck as CSO at this key inflection point in the company’s development,” added René Hoet “ImCheck is in a unique position with two first-in-class antibodies that are rapidly progressing towards the clinic as well as a wealth of exciting antibody discovery programs addressing novel targets in immune-oncology and auto-immunity. I am looking forward to working together with the management, Board of Directors and the excellent team at ImCheck to bring these molecules to patients.”