Jean Combalbert, Pharm.D. Ph.D., will continue to serve on Board of Directors
Brussels, Belgium January 31st, 2022 – Drug discovery and development company EPICS Therapeutics announced today that its Board of Directors has appointed Franz Obermayr, Ph.D., as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. He will also join EPICS Therapeutics Board of Directors. Franz Obermayr will succeed Jean Combalbert, who will continue to serve on the EPICS therapeutics Board of Directors and support the team and Franz Obermayr as a consultant to facilitate a smooth change over process. « Jean provided remarkable leadership over the last 18 years. After the successful development of Ogeda since 2006 (initially Euroscreen) and its sale to Astellas Inc. in 2017, Jean was a founder and the driving force of EPICS Therapeutics since 2018, building a strong drug discovery and development organization and successfully ushering drug candidates into clinical development. The Board of Directors is convinced that under Franz Obermayr’s leadership the company will further progress and achieve successes in its developments. » said Michel Allé, Chairman of the Board of EPICS Therapeutics :
« EPICS Therapeutics is a company with great people, projects and potential and I am honored and excited by taking over the role of CEO, » said Franz Obermayr, « RNA-epigenetics’ is an exciting field with a multitude of new targets with the potential to change the treatment paradigm in oncology. The team has already identified novel, highly potent, best in class molecules which will be progressed to clinical testing in the near future. In parallel I look forward to advancing our EP282 clinical program. »
Franz Obermayr previously served as CEO of Eyegate (now Kiora NASDAQ: KPRX), before that he was founder and CEO of Panoptes which was sold to Eyegate in 2020. Before founding Panoptes he served as head of clinical development at Nabriva (NASDAQ: NBRV) leading to approval of Xenleta in 2019. Franz has been in different roles throughout his career in drug development covering areas in infectious, inflammatory and oncology indications and did his PhD in Biochemistry at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund.
« I have faith in Franz’s ability to lead EPICS Therapeutics into the future and look forward to working closely with him as we continue to advance promising EPICS Therapeutics drug development projects » said Jean Combalbert.
