PRESS RELEASE
Immunocore Appoints Nobel Laureate Professor Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe as Non-Executive Director
(OXFORDSHIRE, England & CONSHOHOCKEN, Penn. & ROCKVILLE, Md., US, 15 October 2020) Immunocore (or the “Company”), a pioneering, clinical-stage T cell receptor biotechnology company working to develop and commercialise a new generation of transformative medicines to address unmet needs in cancer, infection and autoimmune disease, today announces the appointment of Professor Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe as Non-Executive Director, effective 1 November 2020.
Professor Ratcliffe has over 30 years’ experience as a physician scientist. He currently serves as Director of Clinical Research at The Francis Crick Institute in London and Director for the Target Discovery Institute and Distinguished Scholar of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research within the Nuffield Department of
Medicine at the University of Oxford.
In 2019, Professor Ratcliffe was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine alongside William G Kaelin, Jr of Harvard University and Gregg L Semenza of Johns Hopkins University. Together they discovered the key mechanisms that cells use to detect and respond to low oxygen levels, known as 'hypoxia', opening up promising new ways to tackle cancer, anaemia and many other diseases.
Professor Ratcliffe trained in medicine at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, before moving to Oxford to specialise in renal medicine. In 1990, with funding as a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow, he set up the Hypoxia Biology laboratory in the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford.
Professor Ratcliffe was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society and to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2002. He is a member of European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and this year became a Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Academy. His work has won a number of awards including the Louis-Jeantet Prize in Medicine, the Canada Gairdner International Award, and the Lasker Award for Basic Biomedical Research. He was knighted for services to medicine in the New Year's Honours in 2014.
Professor Sir John Bell, Chairman of Immunocore, said: “We are delighted to welcome Professor Ratcliffe to the Immunocore Board. The wealth of knowledge and experience he has gained throughout his illustrious career will be invaluable to the Board. We look forward to working with him as we continue to work towards approval of our lead candidate tebentafusp and further expansion and acceleration of our clinical stage pipeline of TCR-based biologic therapies.”
Professor Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, commented: “I am honoured to be joining Immunocore at such a pivotal time in the company’s journey as it advances its novel pipeline of ImmTAX™ candidates through the clinic. Immunocore’s ground-breaking technology has enormous potential to benefit patients with serious diseases and I look forward to working closely with the Board and management team during this important phase in the Company’s development.”
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About Immunocore
Immunocore is a pioneering, clinical-stage T cell receptor biotechnology company working to develop and commercialise a new generation of transformative medicines to address unmet needs in cancer, infection and autoimmune disease. The Company’s most advanced programmes are in oncology and it has a rich pipeline of programmes in infectious and autoimmune diseases. Immunocore’s lead programme, tebentafusp (IMCgp100), has entered pivotal clinical studies as a treatment for patients with metastatic uveal melanoma. Collaboration partners include Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Company, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Immunocore is headquartered at Milton Park, Oxfordshire, UK, with offices in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania and Rockville, Maryland in the US. For more information, please visit www.immunocore.com.
For more information, please contact:
Immunocore
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E: debra.nielsen@immunocore.com
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Mary-Jane Elliott/ Chris Welsh/ Sukaina Virji
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E: Immunocore@consilium-comms.com