Our mission is to translate the biology of Treg modulation into meaningful clinical benefit — developing differentiated therapies that bring durable benefit to patients with autoimmune diseases and cancer.
We are leveraging our discovery platform to identify novel Treg-specific targets and develop innovative drug candidates that selectively inhibit Tregs in tumors or expand Tregs in inflamed tissues.
We are advancing in the clinic EGL-001, an antagonist IL-2 mutein fused to a blocking CTLA-4 antibody (NCT06622486). EGL-003, our lead program for autoimmune disease, has completed IND-enabling studies and is poised to enter phase I in 2025.
We are backed by a world-class board of directors, prominent investors, and strategic academic partnerships, dedicated to delivering transformative therapies for patients.
Leadership Team
John Celebi is a seasoned biotechnology executive with over 30 years of experience building and scaling innovative life sciences companies and has been a member of the Egle board of directors since 2024. Mr. Celebi has held senior operating and business leadership roles spanning corporate strategy, business development and alliance management. His background includes advancing the oncology program as chief executive officer at Sensei Bio, leading oncology business strategy at X4 Pharmaceuticals as chief operating officer and serving as chief business officer at the immunotherapy startup, Igenica Biotherapeutics. He has negotiated and managed a broad range of collaborations with global pharmaceutical and biotech partners, including Roche, Daiichi-Sankyo and Kyowa Hakko Kirin during his time as vice president of business development at ArQule. He began his career in drug discovery roles at Tularik. Mr. Celebi holds an M.B.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in Biophysics from the University of California, San Diego.
Dr. Hashimoto is a board-certified medical oncologist with over 20 years of experience in drug development in both academia and industry. He brings significant immuno-oncology knowledge and experience from T cell engagers to checkpoint inhibitors. His work has been published in highly recognized journals including Clinical Cancer Research, Nature Medicine and Cancer Cell. He has been serving as a fractional CMO to biotech companies, providing leadership in clinical development planning, business development, fundraising and execution of clinical studies in oncology and immunology.
Prior to joining Egle Therapeutics, he was Chief Medical Officer at Crescendo Biologics. Kenji supported the preclinical to clinical transition of the company and led the Phase I study of T cell bispecific biotherapeutics. Prior to Crescendo, Kenji led the clinical development for a checkpoint inhibitor for multiple late phase clinical trials at Roche/Genentech. Prior to that, he was Clinical Research Physician at Chugai Pharma Europe leading clinical development for a bispecific T cell engager as well as other early phase projects. Kenji has a PhD in medical oncology from the University of Oxford and an MD from Gunma University in Japan.
Bart De Leeuw joined Egle Therapeutics as Chief Financial Officer in 2025. Concurrently, he is a partner at Fund+, an open-ended fund for long-term equity investment in innovative life sciences companies. Prior to joining Fund+, Bart worked at Ackermans & van Haaren as Group Controller and Investment Manager and as CFO/Risk Officer at Fortino Capital Partners. For most of his career, he worked at Ernst&Young where he progressed as Head of the Technical Desk. He was part of the EY global expert group in London. Bart holds a master’s degree in Commercial Sciences and in Business Information Systems from the University of Brussels. Bart is a Board Member of Coave, EyeD Pharmaceuticals and Epics Therapeutics.
Fiorella Kotsias DVM, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Fiorella Kotsias drives scientific innovation at Egle Tx, overseeing drug development from basic research to candidate selection and high-impact translational studies in clinical trials.
Before joining Egle Tx, Dr. Kotsias held Research Associate positions at Institut Curie, France and CONICET, Argentina, where she led grant-funded projects in translational immunology, contributed to cutting-edge research, and mentored emerging scientists.
She has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications in leading journals and has over a decade of experience in academic instruction, including graduate-level teaching and thesis supervision.
Dr. Kotsias completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Institut Curie and holds a Ph.D. in Immunology as well as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Reno Winter Ph.D
Chief Technical Officer
With over 10 years of experience, Reno Winter has a proven track record in operationally leading and managing analytical and process development, as well as overseeing external manufacturing activities.
His expertise in pharmaceutical development ranges from cell bank generation to drug substance and drug product manufacturing and supply.
As Head of CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls) for a clinical-stage biotech company in Germany and as CMC Lead for Baxter/Shire PLC in Austria, he worked on numerous Investigational New Drug programs.
Reno has led multiple teams in executing and mastering all clinical trial-enabling CMC activities and has made significant contributions to numerous clinical trial applications and patents.
Reno is a trained biochemist and received his doctor’s degree in natural sciences from the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.
Bernard Vanhove Ph.D
Chief Development Officer
Dr. Bernard Vanhove is an accomplished researcher with over 20 years of experience in immunology, focusing on transplant immunology, autoimmunity, and immuno-oncology. He has authored more than 125 peer-reviewed articles in these fields and is a recipient of the France Transplant Prize.
He serves as a CNRS Director of Research in Pharmacology and Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Vanhove was the former leader of the FP6 European network TRIAD (T Cell Regulation in Autoimmune Disease). He is also the founder and former CEO of the biotech company Effimune, and has held leadership positions as COO of Ose Immunotherapeutics and COO/CSO of Xenothera.
Dr. Vanhove holds a PhD in Immunology from the University of Louvain in Belgium and completed post-doctoral studies in molecular biology at the Sandoz International Research Collaboration Centre in Vienna, Austria. He also has a degree in Business Administration from Audencia Business School in Nantes, France.
Board of Directors
Michel Detheux Executive Chairman
Michel has held the role of Chief Executive Officer at iTeos Therapeutics since the company’s inception in 2012. During his tenure, Michel has led the company from its origins to NASDAQ listing, raising $335MM in 2020 through a crossover round and IPO. More recently, he spearheaded the strategic collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline in 2021 to co-develop and co-commercialize iTeos’ differentiated anti-TIGIT antibody for a total value of $2B. He previously served as a director at Ludwig Cancer Research and worked in various scientific and business development roles at Ogeda (f/k/a Euroscreen). Dr. Detheux holds a degree of Bio-engineer and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Université Catholique de Louvain, and a business certificate from Solvay Business School.
John Celebi Executive Director
John Celebi, MBA, has over 25 years of experience building innovative entrepreneurial biotechnology companies. He currently serves as President and CEO of Sensei Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ: SNSE), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of novel immunotherapies for cancer patients with unmet needs. Previously, Mr. Celebi served as the Chief Operating Officer of X4 Pharmaceuticals where he established and oversaw the company’s oncology business strategy. He also served as Chief Business Officer of Igenica Biotherapeutics, Inc., an immunotherapy company formed by The Column Group, 5AM Ventures, Orbimed, and Third Rock Ventures, where he established key academic and industry relationships, including with MedImmune. Mr. Celebi has extensive transactional and alliance management experience, having served as Vice President of Business Development, New Product Planning and Alliance Management at ArQule, Inc., where he played a central role in the formation of alliances with Roche, Daiichi-Sankyo, and Kyowa Hakko Kirin. Mr. Celebi was an early employee at Tularik, Inc., where he conducted drug discovery and basic research. Mr. Celebi received an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in biophysics from the University of California, San Diego.
Vincent Brichard Venture Partner at LSP.
Vincent Brichard is Venture Partner at LSP. He was formerly Senior Vice President and member of the Executive Team of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and headed the Business Unit for Immunotherapeutics. He is member of scientific advisory boards and supervisory boards of several European life sciences companies active in the fields of immuno-oncology, vaccines and diagnostics. He authored more than a 100 research manuscripts in leading international journals. He studied medicine at the Louvain University in Brussels and Institute Curie in Paris, received his Ph.D. in tumor immunology at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Brussels and had the position of a Professor of Oncology at Louvain University, Brussels. He also holds an executive MBA from Harvard Business School.
Laurenz Govaerts
Vice President at EQT-LSP
Laurenz Govaerts is a Vice President in the EQT Life Sciences team. Laurenz worked for LSP from 2021 until 2022, when LSP joined forces with EQT and was renamed EQT Life Sciences.
Prior to joining LSP, Laurenz worked as a Ph.D. researcher at Vlerick Business School and KU Leuven University in Leuven, Belgium and as a protein engineer at Roche GmbH in Munich, Germany.
Laurenz holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from KU Leuven University & Vlerick Business School, a M.Sc. in Drug Development from KU Leuven University, a M.Sc. in Healthcare Management and Policy from KU Leuven University and a B.Sc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from KU Leuven University.
Simon Cooper is an accomplished leader in drug development with an extensive background in translational medicine and clinical development. Over the course of his career, he has worked across multiple modalities and therapeutic areas from first-in-human studies through FDA submissions and approvals of highly successful therapeutics. He currently serves as Chief Medical Officer for LifeMine Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering a bold new approach, Top-Down Drug DiscoveryTM, which leverages evolutionary insights from fungi to unearth next-generation precision medicines.
Prior to joining LifeMine, Simon has served as CMO of Morphic Therapeutic, Keros Therapeutics, Kadmon Holdings and Anokion, where he drove significant advances in program development and built key functional areas to support clinical development for assets in the autoimmune, inflammatory, and immuno-oncology areas. Simon was previously asset strategy leader at AbbVie where he played a key role in the development of risankizumab in a variety of indications including ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Simon has also held the role of Vice President, Global Project Head for the sarilumab program at Sanofi and Group Program Medical Director at Novartis, leading the submission of the secukinumab program in psoriasis.
Simon holds a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne Medical School.
Halina Novak
Associate Partner at Fund+
Halina Novak, PhD, is a Associate Partner at Fund+. Halina brings extensive experience in technology innovation, investment and alliance management and is currently serving on multiple Biotech / MedTech boards across Europe. Formerly, Halina held several leadership positions at VIB, the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology and worked at the intersection between industry, pharma and academia, leading large multi-stakeholder collaborations. Notably, she headed the Tech Watch Program and established the Technology Innovation Lab, where unique strategies were developed to identify, invest in, and evaluate breakthrough life science technologies in collaboration with start-ups and pharma. Many of these early stage investments in disruptive tools have since revolutionised the Life Sciences. Halina started her career at Unilever on a fellowship that developed novel applications of industrial enzymes after having graduated from the University of Exeter with a PhD and BSc in Biological Sciences and Biological and Medicinal Chemistry, respectively.
Jean-François Morin
Jean-François Morin is an Investment Director covering venture capital investments in biotech and medical devices companies. Jean-François currently serves on the Boards of ONA Therapeutics, Coave Therapeutics, Orphalan, Elkedonia, Pixee Medical and May Health. Prior to joining Bpifrance, he was a Financial Manager at CDC Entreprises, a Funds Management company where he was involved in structuring several investment funds and for the portfolio monitoring, mostly in Venture Capital. He is graduate from EDHEC Business School in France.
Mojgan is the Head of R&D Global Portfolio Strategy and Strategic Finance, Research and Development at Takeda. She joined the company in September 2017 and currently directs portfolio strategy and management across all therapeutic areas facilitating investment decisions and overseeing R&D governance process. Additionally, she manages enabling capabilities that support portfolio management including the center of operational performance and integrated portfolio/finance digital solutions. In previous roles, she led the R&D investor relations group and built up the R&D Partnership Office, which was created to manage the overall health of R&D’s pipeline partnerships and their integration into R&D processes.
Board Observers
Dirk Reyn
Managing Partnerat Bioqube
Dirk Reyn is a Pharmacist and MBA’er with International Marketing, Global Sales Management, Product Development, Crisis Management, Business Development and General Management/biotech CEO skills acquired in the international pharmaceutical industry over a period of more than 38 years in both big and small companies and in different continents. He was a key player in at least 6 major pharma licensing and M&A deals in his capacity as head of BD for Europe while working for JNJ. After his tenure in big pharma (Lilly and JNJ), he was start-up CEO and founder of different companies including Movetis (2006), a public (Euronext) biopharmaceutical spin-off company from Janssen Pharmaceutica that was acquired by Shire, Progress Pharma (2012) that worked on a GI asset (Lipid, Heidelberg) before it was acquired by Nestle, eTheRNA (2015), a mRNA technology spin-off from the Free University of Brussels, and Spectricity (2018), an Imec spin-off with the smallest spectrometer on the planet. He currently is one of the three Managing Partners of the Bioqube Factory Fund (2020), a specialized biotech investment Fund with 110 million under management. He is also President of Flanders.bio the organization of biotech companies in Flanders.
Elisa El Nouchi
Associate at BPI-Innobio2
Elisa El Nouchi is an Associate in the Life Sciences Investment team at Bpifrance. She currently serves on the Board of AlgoTherapeutix and has participated in multiple investments/refinancing through Bpifrance Funds. Prior to joining Bpifrance, she started her career in the M&A Department of a Specialty Pharmaceutical Company in Paris. She holds a PharmD from the Faculty of Pharmacy Paris-Saclay and a Master in Management from the ESSEC Business School.
Sean O’Connor
Principal at T1D Fund
Sean O’Connor is a Principal at the T1D Fund, the venture capital arm of Breakthrough T1D. In this role, he drives new investments in autoimmune disease and regenerative medicine and currently serves as an observer at Veralox Therapeutics and IMT Therapeutics. Prior to joining the T1D Fund in 2022, Sean worked at the Boston Consulting Group in the Healthcare practice, serving biopharma, MedTech, and private equity clients.
Sean earned his PhD at The Rockefeller University where he studied the role of miRNAs in governing adipose tissue phenotype. He holds a BA in biochemistry from Occidental College.
Egle’s scientific foundations benefits from decades of breakthrough academic research in the field of Regulatory T cells (Tregs).
Our unique target discovery platform combines multi-omics analyses with a proprietary bioinformatic pipeline to unveil novel and specific therapeutic Treg targets in cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Our approach leverages the potential of antibody therapeutics coupled with the selective mechanism of action of proprietary computational-based IL-2 cytokine variants to inhibit or activate suppressive Tregs and restore immune responses.
EGL-003 structure predictions generated using AlphaFold Colab,
visualization and animations by PyMOL.
Modelisation by Sébastien Lemoine
Egle deploys its innovative technology platforms to build a rich pipeline of novel Treg-focused immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.
| Program | Discovery | Preclinical | IND-enabling | Phase I | Phase II | ||
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Immunocytokine Treg Starver
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(aCTLA-4 IL-2m) |
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NCT06622486
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(Targeted IL-2m) |
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Novel Treg Target
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(mAb) |
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 Partenered
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| Program | Discovery | Preclinical | IND-enabling | Phase I | Phase II | ||
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Fc-fused Treg Engager
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(Fc-Fused Engager) |
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