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WELCOME TO RIBONEXUS
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Developing best in class therapies to overcome drug resistance in cancer cells

With a scientific foundation developed from three world renown French research institutes – Gustav Roussy, Institut Curie, and University of Strasburg – together with technology licensed from Pierre Fabre, Ribonexus is developing novel therapies to overcome drug resistance in cancer cells.

Our company is supported by investors experienced in development and realisation of value in the biopharmaceutical sector and the company is led by an international team of industry veterans and advisors who have deep experience in the discovery and development of both small molecules and biological therapeutic products in oncology and other disease fields.

 

pexels_3_resized

Developing best in class therapies to overcome drug resistance in cancer cells

With a scientific foundation developed from three world renown French research institutes – Gustav Roussy, Institut Curie, and University of Strasburg – together with technology licensed from Pierre Fabre, Ribonexus is developing novel therapies to overcome drug resistance in cancer cells.

Our company is supported by investors experienced in development and realisation of value in the biopharmaceutical sector and the company is led by an international team of industry veterans and advisors who have deep experience in the discovery and development of both small molecules and biological therapeutic products in oncology and other disease fields.

 

SCIENCE

Overcoming chemoresistance and restore sensitivity to targeted therapies

Drugs targeting and mediating commonly dysregulated oncogenic signalling pathways have transformed the treatment regimens of many cancers, thus extending and potentially saving lives.

However, resistance to these targeted therapies remains high precluding large numbers of patients from benefiting from these drugs. One solution is to disrupt protein synthesis downstream of the typically targeted metabolic pathways.

The signalling cascades of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways converge and induce formation of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4F (eIF4F). Inhibition and disruption of the eIF4 complex will disrupt RNA translation and subsequently protein synthesis and therefore impact multiple, interconnected cancer growth and survival mechanisms.

The transformation machinery in cancer

With the aim of developing best in class eIF4 inhibitors, Ribonexus has been able to draw on expertise from three leading research groups in the field from Gustav Roussy, Institut Curie, and University of Strasburg and combine this with established technology from Pierre Fabre.Pharmaceuticals.

Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2015 Apr;14(4): 261-78 Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2019 Jul 1;11(7):a032896 Clin Cancer Res. 2017 Jan 1;23(1):21-25

Transformation is initated by th elF4F, consisting in the elF4G, elF4A proteins

Proliferation of cancer cells requires continuous protein syntesis

mRNA translation is the most energy-consuming process in the cell, it is tightly controlled and has a major role in the regulation of gene expression

Cancer cells hijak the translational machinery for their sustained profiration, survival, and metastasis

Nearly all major oncogenic signalling pathways deregulated in human cancers - ncluding RAS-MAPK, PI3K-AKTmTOR, MYCand WNT-(beta)-caterin - ultimately lead to reprogramming of mRNA translation

Overexpression of elF4E results in cell transformation

LEADERSHIP

MATTHIEU COUTET

Matthieu brings more than 15 years of experience in venture capital and operations, having spent a decade in tech transfer as head of company creation at Inserm Transfert (Paris, France) and managing partner at Inserm Transfert Initiative. He handled investments in 14 seed-stage companies including Enyo Pharma, Eyevensys, Sensorion and Inotrem. He also served as VP operations & business development at two French biotechnology start-ups, TherAchon (sold to Pfizer) and Annapurna Therapeutics (merged with Adverum Biotechnology).

Matthieu not only brings a wealth of experience in early-stage investor management, financial and operational strategies, but also a strong network of researchers, entrepreneurs and technology transfer officers with whom he has forged significant partnerships.

STEPHANE VISPE

Stéphane Vispé obtained his PhD from the University Paul Sabatier (Toulouse, France), in 1998, after having worked on the role of homologous recombination, and Rad51, in the repair of radiation of chemotherapeutically induced DNA double-strand breaks. He then pursued a post-doctoral training in Canada (CRCHUL, Quebec) to further decipher the mechanism underlying the formation of DNA double-strand breaks. In 2001 he joined Pierre Fabre company as a team leader in charge of characterizing novel anti-cancer candidates. In 2015 he moved to Pierre Fabre Business Development department where he oversees In and Out Licensing projects with external companies.

LAURIANNE GARCIA-ORDONEZ

Laurianne is a Life Sciences Investor at Crédit Mutuel Innovation since 2018. Before joining CMI she spent 4 years at Abbott Diagnostics as key account manager on the core laboratory, bringing clinical chemistry and immunoassay systems on the market. Previously she worked at the CEA’ strategic marketing service on medtech and biotech projects. Laurianne holds a Master of Sciences from Grenoble Alpes University and the International Certificate in Corporate Finance from HEC Paris, training supplemented by several experiences in neurosciences at the GIN, IP at Avenium Consulting and venture capital at Supernova Invest.

STEVEN POWELL, PRESIDENT

Steven has extensive experience of the development and commercialisation of therapeutic and vaccine products. Immediately prior to joining Ribonexus he was CEO of Belgian mRNA company eTheRNA Immunotherapies, developing technologies and therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines for cancer and infectious diseases respectively. He graduated in microbiology from the University of Wales and was awarded a PhD from the University of Aberdeen. He has over 30 years of corporate development and investment experience in pharmaceutical, diagnostic and medtech R&D and manufacturing. His previous operational experience includes appointments with Beecham Pharmaceuticals (GSK), Active Biotech, KS BioMedix, Plethora Solutions and Cambridge Cognition. He also served as an operational partner with Gilde Healthcare in the Netherlands, an international life sciences and healthcare investment fund, for over 10 years.

ALEJO CHORNY, COO

Alejo is Operating Partner at AdBio Partners, where he supports the creation of new biotech companies. Before joining AdBio, Alejo was at the BD team of BIAL pharmaceuticals. Here he was responsible for sourcing external technologies that strategically fit company’s pipeline portfolio. In this position he was instrumental in the acquisition of Lysosomal Therapeutics. Before coming back to Europe Alejo worked for the biotech company Celdara Medical, New York, evaluating and identifying early-stage assets for licensing opportunities and sourcing non-dilutive funding.

Prior to transitioning to the business side, Alejo spent more than 14 years in research focused on immune-mediated diseases and co-authored more than 35 publications in top-tier journals and 2 patents. Alejo was also senior editor at the Journal of Experimental Medicine and performed post-doctoral research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. Alejo completed his PhD in Immunology at the CSIC-Granada University, Spain in 2009.

MICHEL ANDRAUD, CFO

Michel, MSc, graduate from HEC Business School (F), developed his CFO experience first in industrial companies in an international environment, then as interim CFO to support companies in exceptional periods of their life. This career path has led him to accompany start-ups in different sectors. Since 2016, he has focused on the Financial Management of biotech start-ups, that he has supported since their creation. Among them, Orphalan SA up to drug marketing in 2019 , Alpha Anomeric, Hemerion Therapeutics, and now Ribonexus to which he brings his entrepreneurial sense and his operational pragmatism.

CAROLINE ROBERT

Caroline Robert, M.D., Ph.D, director of the Melanoma clinic and Melanoma Research Unit INSERM 981 at Gustave Roussy, was trained as a Dermatologist in Paris University and did a Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Boston. She is full Pr and teaches Dermatology and Oncology at Paris-Saclay University.
She has a long term experience in conducting clinical trials from phase I to III. Her research work focuses the identification of new predictive biomarkers as well as the development of new therapies to delay therapeutic resistance. She has authored more than 500 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals

LAURENT DESAUBRY

Laurent is a CNRS research director at the Center of Research in Biomedicine of Strasbourg. After a Ph.D. degree in medicinal chemistry and a four-year postdoctoral internship at SUNY at Stony Brook, he joined CNRS and was promoted CNRS research director (corresponds to full professor) in 2014. He became also adjunct professor at Tianjin University of Science and Technology in 2015. His research covers medicinal chemistry with a special emphasis on prohibitin ligands and eIF4A inhibitors.

STEFAN VAGNER

Stéphan Vagner obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology in 1995. He subsequently held a postdoctoral position at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany. He is now a Research Director at INSERM. He is Director of the CNRS UMR 3348 / INSERM U1278 “genome integrity, RNA and cancer” department at the Institut Curie and Associate Professor at Ecole Polytechnique (Palaiseau, France). His research interests include gene regulation and post-transcriptional control in cancer. He published more than 80 publications. He has a strong expertise in RNA biology, specifically in the role of mRNA binding proteins in pre-mRNA processing. He has deciphered how splicing factors integrate the different steps in pre-mRNA processing. He has recently discovered a pathway in which alternative splicing of histone variant isoforms regulates the transcription of genes involved in tumor cell invasion as well as the link between targeted therapies and mRNA translation.

PEPPI PRASIT

Peppi Prasit, Ph.D., is a retired scientist and pharmaceutical executive. He was the former CEO and co-founder of Inception Sciences. Prior to that he was the CSO and co-founder of Amira Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Peppi brings decades of leadership and drug discovery experience. In 1985 he joined Merck Frosst Canada as a bench scientist and transferred to Merck San Diego as the head of chemistry in the year 2000. He played a pivotal role in the discovery of multiple marketed drugs and is widely recognized for his accomplishments as a drug hunter. Peppi received his B.Sc. from UCL, London University, and his Ph.D. from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University.

JORGE KIRILOVSKY

Jorge Kirilovsky obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and conducted a postdoctoral training in Molecular Neurobiology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He worked in GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) France R&D for 30 years. Starting as an investigator, he became Head of Department and in 2006 Jorge was appointed, VP and Head of the Drug Discovery Centre of GSK in France. He directed a group of a hundred biologists, chemists, pharmacokineticists and clinicians working together to identify new candidate drugs for development. The discovery of Tadalafil (CialisTM) for the treatment of erectile dysfunction and the first epigenetic drug that reached clinical development are among the main contributions of his team. Jorge was involved in the identification and selection of about 20 clinical drug candidates in immuno-inflammation, cardiovascular and oncology areas.

At present Jorge is a Senior Consultant in Drug Discovery. As such, he is a member of the Health Expert Committee of BPI Large Ventures and he is part of the Investment Committee of the SATT Paris-Saclay. In addition, he supports Yukin Therapeutics and Ribonexus. He previously acted as CSO of Tridek-One Therapeutics and was a scientific advisor of Sulficon and Urania Therapeutics.

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