Profile

How and when did your company start, and where are you located? Transgene was founded as a private company in 1979 with the support of world-renowned biologists, Pierre Chambon and Philippe Kourilsky. The company initially focused on carrying out third party research projects in the fields of genetic engineering, immunology, virology, molecular and cellular biology and protein chemistry. Today, Transgene is a publicly traded French biopharmaceutical company, part of the Institut Merieux Group, dedicated to the development of therapeutic vaccines and immunotherapeutic products for the treatment of unmet medical needs in oncology and infectious diseases. The company headquarters are located in Illkirch, near Strasbourg, France with sites in Lyon, Kensington and Shanghai. How many employees do you have, and how do you find/attract them? The company has a highly skilled workforce of some 270 full-time employees who joined Transgene from major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as from research academic institutions. What attracts them is the maturity of the company's pipeline and its focus on finding solutions to today's major unmet medical needs. What are the main focus and platform technology(ies) of your company? The main focus is the design and development of cutting-edge immu-notherapeutic products to treat cancers and chronic infectious diseases. Our expertise covers all stages of product development, from research to the manufacture of clinical batches, and the conducting of clinical trials. Our technological platform consists of gene transfer technology that aims to help patients fight life threatening diseases through restoring the immune's system capacity to eliminate abnormal or infected cells. In the products under clinical development we currently use three types of vectors: Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA), vaccinia virus and adenovirus. Four products are currently in clinical development: TG4010 is in phase 2/3 trial for the treatment of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer; Pexa-vec (JX594/TG6006) is in multiple phase 2 and phase 1 trials for the treatment of Hepatocarcinoma and Metastatic Colorectal cancers; TG4001 has completed phase 2 trials in HPV-induced pre-cancerous lesions of the cervix and will begin a phase 2 trial for HPV induced oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma at the end of 2013; and TG4040 has completed a phase 2 study for the treatment of chronic Hepatitis C. Who is your competition, and what advantage(s) does your products/technology offer? Some companies are involved in viral-based products for therapy of cancer & infectious diseases. Our products offer a unique combination of innate & adaptive immune …