MONTRÉAL and BOSTON, May 29, 2019 — enGene Inc., the high growth biotechnology company developing the Gene Pill™ – a robust, proprietary non-viral vector platform to deliver gene therapies via oral administration – today announced the appointment of José M. Lora, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Lora will join the executive management team and will be responsible for setting the scientific strategy and priorities for enGene, as well as overseeing day-to-day research operations.
“We are thrilled to add José’s deep scientific expertise and talent to enGene’s leadership team,” said Jason Hanson, Chief Executive Officer and President of enGene. “Along with his scientific prowess comes his deep drive to bring forward meaningful medications to impact patients’ lives. He is truly the ideal addition to our team.”
“The potential for enGene’s non-viral vector platform to create transformational medicines is remarkably exciting to me personally,” stated Dr. Lora. “I am honored to help build upon the great successes already achieved by enGene’s talented team and to our advancement of promising programs for the benefit of patients.”
Dr. Lora brings to enGene an extensive track record of leading discovery programs from concept to clinic across various therapeutic areas and modalities. He has been intimately involved in numerous IND-filings, is a co-inventor on 10+ patents and has co-authored 40+ peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. Dr. Lora joins enGene from Synlogic, Inc., where he served as Vice President of Research. In this role, José was responsible for building the Immunomodulation Therapy Area and for immuno-oncology programs from discovery up to human proof-of-mechanism/proof-of-concept. Prior to joining Synlogic, José ascended in positions of increasing responsibility at Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he was ultimately responsible for establishing and managing immunomodulatory and immuno-epigenetics functions. Early in his career, José led efforts in immunology, liver fibrosis and respiratory diseases (including COPD and Cystic Fibrosis) at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Roche Palo Alto, LLC, and GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Lora obtained his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology at CSIC/University of Sevilla, Spain, and completed his post-doctoral studies at Brown University and the University of Utah in the USA.
“I look forward to working with José as enGene enters its exciting new phase of growth,” said Dr. Cheung, Co-founder, and Chief Technology Officer at enGene. “We are proud that the promise of our platform and the milestones our team has accomplished have attracted an industry veteran of José’s caliber to join our journey.”
About enGene Inc.
enGene Inc. is a biotechnology company developing a proprietary non-viral gene therapy platform for localized delivery of nucleic acid payloads to mucosal tissues. The dually derived chitosan (DDX®) platform has a high-degree of payload flexibility including DNA and various forms of RNA (siRNA, shRNA, lncRNA, etc.) with broad tissue and disease applications. In addition to developing gene therapies for mucosal tissues such as the bladder, enGene has developed a unique gut-optimized gene delivery formulation into an orally available Gene Pill™ to provide oral delivery of a wide range of protein drugs. Oral gene delivery is a revolutionary improvement over current protein-drug delivery methods which involve injections and represent risks of side effects, high cost, poor patient compliance and systemic problems due to the need to administer higher doses. The company is evolving its technology to enable treatments of all mucosal tissues such as the lung and eye among others.
For further information:
Jason Hanson, CEO and President, enGene Inc., jhanson@engene.com
Tel: 514-332-4888 ext. 100
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