enGene announces appointment of Theresa Podrebarac, MD, as Chief Medical Officer

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May 01, 2017, 06:00 ET

MONTREAL, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - enGene Inc. announced today that Theresa Podrebarac, MD, has joined the company as Chief Medical Officer. In her new position, Dr. Podrebarac will be responsible for designing and executing clinical development plan for enGene's pipeline of products, as well as effectively positioning these novel therapeutics in the marketplace.

"I am delighted to welcome Dr. Podrebarac to enGene. Her impressive track record in translational medicine and predictive biomarkers together with her in-depth experience in drug development, especially in the advancement of novel drugs and biologics for various immunology indications, will be invaluable to enGene as we move several of our pre-clinical product candidates towards the clinic," said Dr. Anthony Cheung, President and CEO of enGene. "Dr. Podrebarac also brings vital strength to enGene's senior leadership team as we transition into a clinical stage company. She will provide important clinical and strategic perspective to the team as we expand our unique oral gene therapy platform to deliver new protein drug targets."

"enGene's innovative approach could revolutionize how we achieve local delivery of biologics to the gastrointestinal tract," Dr. Podrebarac said. "I am extremely excited and privileged to be working with such a dedicated team committed to developing new technology as medicines for patients and their families coping with inflammatory bowel disease."

Dr. Podrebarac is a 15-year industry veteran with extensive pharmaceutical drug development expertise from large pharma and biotech companies. She joins enGene from AbbVie where she served as Vice President, Immunology Clinical Development. At AbbVie, she led the Immunology Therapeutic Council to develop the future vision for the company's portfolio and introduced integrated biomarker techniques and quantitative decision tools to early clinical development. Previously, she was Vice President of Early Clinical Development and Immunology at Biogen, where she successfully led the strategy to develop several compounds in autoimmune and fibrotic diseases. She has also supported the approvals of Tysabri™ for multiple sclerosis, Rituxan™ for rheumatoid arthritis, and championed the development of tools and techniques for early clinical proof of concept in diseases including inflammatory bowel disease. Prior to Biogen, Dr. Podrebarac served as Vice President and Head of Rheumatology Global Clincal Development at EMD Serono where she led a global team of physicians and scientists within the clinical development unit and provided strategic leadership to the Autoimmunity, Inflammation and Emerging Therapies Unit.

Dr. Podrebarac is a board certified rheumatologist who earned her medical degree from the University of Western Ontario and completed post-doctoral training in T cell immunology at Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

About enGene
enGene Inc. is a biotechnology company developing a robust proprietary gene-therapy platform for localized delivery of immune-modulating proteins to mucosal cells lining the gut for the oral treatment of various immune disorders. enGene has developed a unique gut-optimized gene delivery formulation into an orally available "Gene Pill", which has the potential to be a game-changing platform to provide oral delivery of a wide range of protein drugs. enGene has established global strategic alliances with two of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.

SOURCE enGene