Immunocore appoints Dr. Christina Coughlin as Chief Medical Officer
(Oxford, UK, 01 April 2015) Immunocore Limited (“the Company”), a world-leading biotechnology company developing novel biological drugs to treat cancer, viral infections and autoimmune disease, is today pleased to announce the appointment of Christina Coughlin as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Coughlin will be responsible for providing medical and regulatory leadership to the pre-clinical and clinical programmes for the Company.
Dr. Coughlin has extensive experience in oncology drug development, with expertise in both clinical development and translational medicine. She has more than a decade of pharmaceutical industry experience from pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Dr. Coughlin has led multiple programmes across the full spectrum of drug development from pre-IND to filing and has industry leading expertise in immune-oncology.
Most recently, Dr. Coughlin was leading two early development programmes at Novartis in checkpoint inhibition and PI3’kinase inhibition. Dr. Coughlin led the overall programme early development teams, including preclinical pharmacology, toxicology, clinical pharmacology, clinical development, biomarker development and regulatory work.
Prior to this she served as International Project Team Leader at Morphotek Inc., the monoclonal antibody company acquired by Eisai Co. Ltd in 2007, where she led the early clinical development team responsible for monoclonal antibody development against novel targets.
Dr. Coughlin graduated with a B.S., from Temple University and an M.D. and Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania. In her academic career at University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Coughlin studied patient responses to tumor antigens with Dr. Robert Vonderheide in the division of Translational Research under the direction of Dr. Carl June.
“I am delighted that Chris has chosen to join Immunocore. She will be working at the heart of our immuno-oncology programmes and will be a key member of the senior team. Chris joins Immunocore at a very exciting time as we continue to advance our pipeline of “ImmTACs” for the treatment of cancer” Dr. Eliot Forster, Chief Executive Officer of Immunocore, commented. “Her experience and background both in clinical development and translational medicine will add significant depth and expertise to our team.”
Dr. Coughlin added: “I am excited to be joining Immunocore at this important time as IMCgp100 is rapidly advancing in the clinic and other programmes are coming on line. Immunocore’s ImmTAC technology and data are proving to be extremely important for the future of cancer and there appears to be significant recognition of this from investigators as well as pharmaceutical companies. I look forward to adding my experience and intend to make a valuable contribution to Immunocore going forward.”
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