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ImCheck ex-CEO Pierre d’Epenoux talks Fundraising, France and Oncology’s Next Wave | E60

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After ImCheck’s inception in 2015, Pierre took the helm through clinical development and guided the startup to a €1.35B buyout by Ipsen last year. In a session at the Kadans Oncology Summit, he talks about how the exit materialised and about the oncology space, including highlights from ASCO 2026, ADCs, in vivo CAR-T and checkpoint inhibitors. He also reveals some of the most shocking lessons he learned from his time at Imcheck.

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Learn more about Kadans’ Oncology Clusters, where oncology biotechs grow from start-up to global player: https://bit.ly/kadans-oncology

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⭐️ ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Pierre has 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including 9 years at ImCheck and more than 3 years as EVP, Chief Strategy Officer at Theravectys. Prior to this, he also spent 10 years in senior roles in Sanofi and Baxter Healthcare.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Intro

Pierre d’Epenoux: ImCheck was incepted in 2015. We raised three rounds for a total of 150 million, and at the end decided to transact with Ipsen for a total of $1.2 billion. At the risk of shocking many people, raise as much cash as possible when you can, and ignore valuation. If you have a delta of 10, 15, 20% of valuation when you have a transaction of a billion, honestly, you don’t care.

There is great science in France. For many years, investors didn’t have the muscles to support. The funds are now much stronger. Even J2 raised a billion not long ago

Philip Hemme: This episode is sponsored by Kadence, who is running the event and the space where the podcast was recorded. Whether you are a early-stage biotech, a growing company, or established R&D team, Kadence has the lab and office space you need. And the network goes beyond Paris, from London to Utrecht in the Netherlands, and all over Europe.

To learn more, click on the link here or in the description below

Yeah. Welcome to a new episode. For the audience online I’m Philip. I’m the founder of The Flood Bioshow which is the largest biotech podcast in, Europe. Today it’s a bit of a special edition. We are at the Cadence Oncology Summit which is in a biotech park just next to Gustave Roussy Institute in Paris.

And today we’ll talk with, Pierre Le Penno who founded ImCheck back in 2015, led it until a very nice acquisition by Ipsen for $400 million upfront. So we’ll talk about the hottest trends in oncology at the moment. And we’ll talk about the success story of ImCheck, and we’ll finish with some lessons for biotech founders and leaders.

Just a quick word on the format. We’ll have some mics passing around, so you can just raise your hand. I will open up a few times for for questions. And don’t be shy, and I think you can post on the app as well if you prefer that. So I think that’s it. Please give a round of applause for Pierre.

Join on the stage.

All right. See you, Mike 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Oh, welcome Thanks, Stéphane. Hopefully we’ll have more people in a few minutes 

Philip Hemme: Welcome on stage. Welcome on the podcast. Yes. 

[00:02:43] Highlights from ASCO 2026

Philip Hemme: So I, wanna start as it’s a oncology event, I wanna start with, ASCO, which just basically finished within Chicago, biggest event for oncology of the year.

Yeah what what struck you? 

Pierre d’Epenoux: First of all, I was not at ASCO this year, for once. I’ve since the exit, spent my time doing a ton of other things than traveling and attending conferences. But I have obviously heard a few things followed a few reports.

Yeah And not surprisingly I I re- I see ADCs- Yeah … translational, AI- Yeah … basically are the three kinda keywords that I would I would retain. We’ve seen some spectacular results in pancreatic, in breast, in lung, and in colorectal. If, I’m not mistaken, those are the four highlights.

But I also s- from a technological standpoint, what I see is clearly a, still a very strong push of the ADCs. What I also get, which I am not surprised, ’cause I didn’t check, and we’ll talk about that later- This was something we pursued ourselves, but I, tend to think that clinicians, pharma, investors now want are not z- zooming on a tumor in particular- but are looking at pan-tumor approaches. Yeah. So I would, I don’t know if I would call them biological platform approaches, but something that can, you know- A bit more address, yeah … Address like a, large panel of things. 

Philip Hemme: Okay let’s dive in into a few things you said on the, pancreatic cancer.

I think that’s really one of the highlight. I saw the standing ovation. It’s crazy, and I think the results is insane. I think it’s the first, drug in metastatic pancreatic cancer which has overall survival rate above 12 months, and it’s double the standard or anything.

Yeah. What, like- 

Pierre d’Epenoux: By pancreatic, what do I think of it? Yeah. What obviously we all hope that 12 months can be beaten by a lot. Yeah. ‘Cause 12 month is great, but, A bit longer … It’s still, only 12 months. Pancreatic cancer, I think there are many of us in different biotech organization who have possibly tried to crack pancreatic cancer.

We did at ImCheck very, tough nut to, to crack. Very complex tumor biology. Addressing it as a single-agent approach we’ll see what the future brings. But yeah, we just need to enjoy what doubling the survival rate from six to 12 months.

This is managed with a small molecule, 

Philip Hemme: which is even more impressive. Yeah. And I saw actually the, also the, number of trials- Yeah … in pancreatic, which basically failed is insane, like- I, think we’ve all tried then you, talked about ADC, maybe you can go a bit there on… So I think a lot of people talk about it, a lot of people try, but I think there’s also quite a bit of noise as well on, on what really working or not.

Before coming on stage, we talked there was the, in, in Europe at least, there was the Tubulus founder was, on the show before the second found- the large founders and before the exit, which was a insane exit. Yeah. How do you look at the, ADC field? Oh, ADC 

Pierre d’Epenoux: has been has been hot now for a few years.

Yeah. Yeah, an exit of three b- in excess of three billion is shows the level of, interest from investors and pharma. Yeah. I just actually seen, unless I’m mistaken, a few hours ago that Ona in Spain just raised close to 96– $90 million for another ADC two, two indications, I think.

So there’s clearly investors interest and pharma yeah, expectation. W- what I- Do you think there’s still space for more? Ex- exactly. So I- I think this is is it the top of the wave, and then it’s gonna start slowing down like we’ve seen historically with other approaches? L- likely, yes.

Yeah.

But we’ll see. I but what I can tell you is investors today look at in, in oncology- look at ADCs, in vivo CARs, the rest is 

Philip Hemme: a lot tougher. Yeah. We can, come back to that as a lesson for timing as well and sometimes if you control it or not. 

[00:07:48] ADCs and In Vivo CAR-T: the Next Wave?

Philip Hemme: On maybe the, on, on the in vivo CAR T, I think there was some results as well as at, ASCO, which was really impressive.

Yeah. Still very early stage. But you told me as well the, number– the amount of money that flew into in vivo CAR T, I think in the last, whatever, 18 months or something in the the billions. I think it was even over $10 billion, I think, in acquisition, mice, everything. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Yeah. Yeah, same thing.

You start to see the first exit, and even just before a clinic, the clinic or, very quickly into the clinic. So yeah, there are now the number of the, demonstration of the benefits, the benef- the benefits of ADCs is now established. Yeah. And now we need to– companies will focus on differentiating factors in combi– building the asset or the combination of the toxins, the ligand and so on in a different way and addressing, different tumor types, and in 

Philip Hemme: vivo, yeah. Yep. Do you think same, question on in vi- in vivo CAR T? Do you think it’s still- 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Yeah, I was commenting on the ADC, sorry. Yeah. So on the in vivo CAR– yeah, on the in vivo CAR Ts I think the concept of having– using the the system on the the patient system as like a factory to to, to generate its own therapy is is an obvious attractive space to go.

And and my discussions with investors clearly showed that there is a lot of interest in that space. 

Philip Hemme: I’m curious how much space there’s left as well n- now that you have three, four big pharma- go heavy on it. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: I think yeah, I’m– I think it’s not as hot or as developed as the as the ADCs so far.

So I think we’ll give it another six to 12 months maybe to see what the trend is gonna look like. I think it’s still early for those those kind of approaches. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. And maybe a la- last with ASCO result, and we just talked about cancer vaccines that were- There was a lot of hope- Yeah

never really worked, but now Moderna published, there was the da- the data, I think it’s a five-year data on, a phase 2B in combination with Keytruda, and they showed, I think it was forty-nine or, almost fifty percent reduction in, death over five years. How do you– I don’t know, what do you think about this and cancer vaccines in general?

Pierre d’Epenoux: Yeah. So cancer vaccines here again seem very attractive on paper. The reality is there’s a lot of, there are a lot of companies, and I speak to many of those CEOs who are struggling to raise. Yeah. And why? Because I am– my understanding is that pharma has no interest in these approaches.

Or I’m making it too black and white, has- Little. And, when it would come to consider either an ADC an in vivo CAR, a monoclonal or a cancer vaccine, I think the cancer vaccine approach will come last. Yeah. And that’s what those CEOs, those companies feel. It’s tough, very tough.

Maybe- Except a few ones including Moderna, who’ve probably passed some proof of concept and heard- And 

Philip Hemme: they have a few billions to finance it and … Correct. 

[00:11:25] Pierre d’Epenoux Explains How to Stand Out in Oncology

Philip Hemme: Maybe let’s, talk also a bit about this on the giving your experience as well. I feel like oncology obviously is a huge need- You have always this, these hot trends, but then it’s also really hard to differentiate.

And I think especially in the room for more biotech entrepreneurs to really make something meaningful, and the competition is usually pretty high. How– you can give your example with ImCheck. I think you, you managed to differentiate and bring something, but how do you look at that actually?

W- 

Pierre d’Epenoux: so how to build differentiation? Yeah. Yeah. I think the only way to the only way to build differentiation is not only with the innovation of the concept which I think in most of the cases comes from academia. Yeah. At least in oncology. Yeah. And and then the data, the that starts to in vitro, in vivo data that start to put some meat around the bone of an idea are basically the first two elements that that g- that may generate a, an initial interest to an investor- to consider the potential differentiation of an approach. Yeah. Data will ne- data will be required. And in our case, when we Danilo Liv our scientific founder, worked for decades on gamma delta T cells. Yeah. Great concept. It, it was studied in in infectious diseases and the idea was it will also work in cancer, in solid tumor even first because it has the exact same biology than infectious diseases.

Okay, great, but that’s an idea. That’s a concept. Yeah. Investors didn’t– were not really ready to embark that idea until Daniel was able to start showing some serious in vitro and a few animal data. So to me the differentiation will require this kind of initial data package to then attract the interest of some pharma, or some some investors, excuse me.

W- and then and that’s– and we know how you start with a seed or a series A, and then you move on. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. What I’m wondering is especially for biotech entrepreneurs listening, I just feel like the bar is pretty high. As you said there’s decades of, research there, really solid pre-clinical package.

A great team- And a great, founder even in, on the execution, not just on the scientific founders. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Yeah we can talk about that later, but to me, building a biotech is 80% sp- is 20% strategy, 80% execution. So to execute you need a great plan and great people. Going back to your first point what does, what do you need, in my opinion, to, to f- to s- to build the f- you know, the foundation of a company- a great scientific idea with initial supporting data. Without data, I don’t think you will ex- you will attract w- and we can define that later, good money. And then the second thing will be talents. You can have great data. If you don’t have the right people, the right talents, I think you’re not gonna transform them into what we all aim to see at the end, which is the superior clinical, or the demonstration of the clinical superiority- of what’s currently existing or the standard of care. Yeah. And I am convinced that if you have a great idea with great data, e- even early stage, and great people, you raise good money. Simple. And we can dis- and we can define 

Philip Hemme: what good money means We’ll do that after. 

[00:15:45] Checkpoint Inhibitors and the Rise of Combination Therapies 

Philip Hemme: Maybe to stay a bit on the, oncology picture as well, if we look back more on let’s say the last 10 years I feel like there there’s a lot of things happened, let’s say checkpoint inhibitors.

How do you, look a bit there on the therapies that came, and also how the, market changed? I remember hearing Roche had whatever, 50 per- 50-plus percent market share. I think right now it’s way less. How did it evolve? 

Pierre d’Epenoux: There’s, there are, as a- as always, there is the technology aspect of things- Yeah

and then there’s the biology aspect. Yeah. So from a technological standpoint you’ve seen all these let’s say waves of of, approaches. Monoclonals, and then you’ve seen the CARs, and then you the ADCs, now the individual CARs and all these things. And at, the time of the monoclonals the the last five years or so- five, 10 years there was a, huge promise that e- engaging almost every checkpoint will generate something fabulous. It’s not been the case. And that’s actually, I think it explains also the fatigue that investors have or demonstrate today, and the, lack of interest that pharma is also demonstrating- because many of those checkpoint have not- Delivered what the hope was It just PD-1, PD-L1 at 

Philip Hemme: the 

Pierre d’Epenoux: end, and that’s- Exactly … basically it. Correct. Now obviously a lot of academic institutions and scientists are working on many other checkpoints. You can name like three and others which probably still hold some promise, but at this stage they have not been able to demonstrate.

And that explains why I think it has also accelerated other technological approaches because monoclonals targeting checkpoint inhibitors only that didn’t deliver. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah on the technology also, one thing that, that quite surprised me, let’s say over the last decade was how what you said, like you, you would think more advanced technology would replace the previous one, and it was not really the case.

No. And then you still see the pancreatic cancer or revolution medicine that, that small molecule are still- 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Yeah, but what you see a lot as a consequence has been combination. Yeah. Because also, w- what we’re struggling with is to demonstrate single agent activity monotherapy.

And I know this is the ground that all pharma wants to see in every investor call, in every pharma’s meeting you get the question as to whether this will work or does work as a monotherapy agent. Unfortunately not. Yeah. And many of companies are trying to combine assets, combine approaches, and technological approaches and so on.

I know we’ll g- get to this in a minute, but in the case of ImCheck, for example, we didn’t invent any technological approaches. We worked on monoclonals. We’ve not invented monoclonals. However, y- the the innovation, going back to your first question, was around a novel biological platform.

So the idea of engaging certain members of this novel super family of targets called the B-cell receptor was basically this innovation, this promise that it would generate something not only in oncology, but also potentially in infectious diseases and in autoimmunity, depending if you were, and if you were activating antibodies or inhibiting antibodies.

Yeah. Yeah, so I think when you look at the future in oncology technology and biological platforms need to be, considered monotherapy in the, in combination. In combination, yeah. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah we’ll get back to also where what to focus on and what, where is the innovation. O- just on, on the one thing on, on Keytruda itself Like, did you ex– did you, when you look at it, did you expect it to grow to whatever, twenty-nine billion dollar annual sales, 

Pierre d’Epenoux: I think?

Yeah every year you look at the numbers, you’re surprised by the by the increase in use and, the successful the success of the of this therapy. So there’s nothing that surprises me anymore. If you ask me, yeah would I have thought twenty years ago that it would reach this kind of, numbers?

No, I would probably, I would have probably been very surprised. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: But it is amazing for patients at the end. The- Yeah … the impact of Keytruda. Correct. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Yeah. But in, I didn’t check in solid tumor we we looked at the combination with PD-1, and- and the results that we got in melanoma in particular were in combination with PD-1.

Yeah. Yeah. In pembro in this case. But if, this comes to work, then you have another space that opens maybe for this for this combination and for PD-1 product in, particular. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. We will, we’ll switch more to the ImCheck ImCheck story. 

[00:21:23] ImCheck: from Inception to Ipsen Buyout

Philip Hemme: I just want to open up for, questions if, someone has in the audience can just raise your hands.

We have a- Sure … we have a mic there

If you have any. Okay. We’ll do another round after. I just want on the topic of oncology whi- while we’re here, for those who are interested I, mentioned the episode with, Tubulus, where another episode was, ex-CEO of BioNTech. We talked quite a lot about oncology there. We had the CEO of Immunocore, which also

I, for- I’m talking about the European examples, which have pretty cool cool, data. And in France, we had the CEO of, Nanobiotix, yep, which also has pretty cool data, so if you wanna check it out. Let’s, go back to, ImCheck. You mentioned a bit the, origin story. Can you take it from there and really the first steps, how it started until, 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Yeah.

I’ll make it I’ll try to structure things quickly. Maybe the first in- the overview of, like- Yeah. Exactly. So ImCheck was founded. I’ve d- I did- to correct you, I did not found ImCheck. I’m not- Oh … one of the founders. I, built ImCheck, if you wish. ImCheck started in was incepted in 2015 by Professor Olive and, two of his co-founders.

But i- but it was it was the results of decades of academic work- Conducted by Daniel in his lab. From Marseille, from- From Marseille. At Inserm, but also in, connection with the Institut Paoli-Calmettes. Years, decades of work in the space of B-cell receptor. So it’s a family of 14 genes.

Not all of them are let’s say fit for what we’re trying to achieve, but at least a few. And Daniel’s idea was to engage certain members of this family with antibodies. Addressing indications in the field of infectious diseases, where a lot of literature had been built and r- developed, but cancer.

Daniel being a hematologist he was really going after cancer. So that was that was the… These were the premises for founding the company in 2016. Yeah. And then Boehringer Ingelheim, as well as Kurma Partners- identified his work, and were interested in joining the the gang.

And and then once both investors and Daniel realized that they were able to secure the IP, they were able to start generating data, then the fo- the founders realized that the next round will be in excess of 10 million- And that the team would need to…

They would n- there would be a need to build a team and find a CEO. So that’s how I came into the picture- Okay … With my 20-ish years of of big pharma. And- But Daniel 

Philip Hemme: and the scientific founders they stayed in the academic position or…? 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Yeah. So, Daniel remained as an academic. Yeah. And the two other founders one joined the company- Yeah

Along with me, and another one remained as a as a consultant. Okay. And so here we go November 2016, first time CEO. And the mission was listen, we believe that there is merit in this approach. Yeah. You need to raise 10 plus million and you need to demonstrate, and you need you need to bring at least two assets to the clinic, or at least one of the two assets that we had at the time in the clinic, and demonstrate the clinical superiority versus standard of care.

And with this, good luck. So that’s really how things started in November 2016. Yeah. About four, five months later, we raised 20 million because we realized that we, needed more money than that, and that’s how Gimv and LSP at the time, now EQT, came into the picture. Yeah. So with those 20 million, we- Amazing investor

amazing investors. With, With those, with an even- amazing board already at the time. With those 20 million, we started the company. So just to… And then you can go into the details if you wish, but four years of clinical, of pre-clinical work with a complex biology which you cannot study in any other species than sinus 

Philip Hemme: Okay 

Pierre d’Epenoux: which adds also to the complexity and the costs.

In five years of clinical development. Now, while going through all this process, we raised then a total of three rounds for– to a total of 150 million- Euros, yeah … euros where, and I see the sign France 2030, we’re actually able to assem- assemble about 25 million of non-dilutive funding, 20 coming from France- France 2030.

And assemble a team of about 50 people most of them in Marseille, but- Several others outside. I was able to attract a CMO for San Diego and, many other people from Europe and the US. And at the end of the day we’re able to present some let’s call it spectacular data in AML at ASCO ’25.

And a few months- Phase 1/2 now, yeah Say again. Yeah, it was- It was phase 1/2 … yeah on the, basis of a phase 1/2 trial in combination with venetoclax as an incitidine. Yeah and as a result, triggered interest from pharma- Yeah … almost immediately. Ran a process, and at the end decided to transact with Ipsen for a total of 1.2 billion-ish Total

dollars and $400 million up front. Dollars up front, yeah. And the, deal closed in December last year. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. That’s an amazing story. Congrats first. Thank you very much. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: The I think we’re, we all are very, humble. This is is a lot of work that went into this. But exiting is also not only about data, about work, it’s also about the the right people on the other side at the right moment and you need a bit of luck. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:28:36] Pipeline Focus and French pharma: Why ImCheck Chose Ipsen 

Philip Hemme: And, how much on the exit side, how much… I guess you had a few other options. Why did you choose this one, or why did the investor choose this one?

I guess a good return as well. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Yeah, so it’s a great question. I can’t I can’t tell you all about it, but I can give you some guidance for the, for the ones of, us that will be exposed to these kind of situations later. We, were obviously ready to transact with any pharma company.

What we wanted was to obviously this company to deliver on, on what we had not only achieved, but what the FDA gave us. Just before we signed the deal in October, we had a end of phase one meeting with the FDA- which ended up in the FDA confirming our plans for a seamless phase two, three trial.

So basically, moving from a phase one to a phase three trial with some patients that would be used as a phase two, but moving into a phase three quite rapidly. A, CMC plan all lined up and n- not yet d- Not yet a guarantee, but some weak signs that we could get breakthrough designation.

So when… At the end of August, beginning of September while we were running this process with the banker we, started to get this confidence that we, are going to assemble all this value. We really wanted to put it in the right hands. And you can choose one of the top three pharma companies, top five- and we had some of them in the, process. But with a risk, and there’s nothing or there’s nothing against what I’m about to say, it’s just a reality, that pharma, and I’ve been there for 20 years, have long-term strategies, but they change or adapt them, let’s put it nicely quite often.

And there was a risk that AML would be a super attractive opportunity for a very large pharma, and become a much less attractive opportunity in 12, 18 months down the road. And for those companies to put on, down on the table a 500 million up-front is a write-off that they can take almost every two weeks if they want to.

So when Ipsen and the like came into this process and gave us the not the assurance of course but a perspective on how they were going to handle this process we got interested- the investors and the management team And we n- we’ve also at the end agreed to hand it over to Ipsen because we know that this kind of upfront money for Ipsen- Makes sense

Is, i- is is so significant that it is a very, strong commitment. And here again, not a guarantee, but at least some comfort, confidence that they were really going to put the right resources behind it. With a lot more possibly agility, and so on and so forth. And then since the transaction has happened Ipsen keeps reporting let’s say progress as we were anticipating them.

So it’s only, it’s less than six months- Yeah … but so far so good. So we’re very, pleased about the transaction. And I just want to insist on the fact that we’ve not done it because Ipsen is a French company. Similarly, Ipsen has repeatedly said, and they’re right, they’ve not done the deal with IPsec because it’s, was a French company.

There’s nothing to do with it. We’re very, happy, and we’ve celebrated that with many institutions and people, that a French academic data have been transformed by a French biotech supported by French investors, not only a lot of French investors, and hand it over into the hands of a French pharma is great.

But it could have been a German, a Swiss, or an American company. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. So then we’ll ask one more question, and I will open up for questions, so you can prepare. We need at least one question from this session. I’m curious on, you mentioned a bit, but what’s, the next test which is always the harder part to also get, like how much is Ipsen pushing for it?

What’s the next step for the drug? 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Oh, so the next step for the drug is the the pha- the stimulus phase two is retrial. As I understand Ipsen intends to to, proceed. So I’m not gonna talk on the name of, Ipsen, of course. You need to ask them the questions, but that’s my understanding.

And and then rapidly go into the tho- those registrational trials. And and then bring this, combination of ICT-zero one with Veneza to the to the market as, as early as twenty thirty, twenty thirty-one. So that is the plan.

Also what, Ipsen has he inherited from in this transaction is a pipeline- in oncology, solid tumors where we have other antibodies, bispecifics, trispecifics, and a few other interesting construct that they are, I believe currently investigating A program in infectious diseases Yeah ‘Cause as I said at the in- in the introduction- For pre- clinical I guess For clinical Yeah obviously I don’t intend or don’t believe that Ipsen suddenly is going to become a, an infectious disease company.

I they focus on their three pillars and infectious disease is not part of them. But I think where at least we discussed with them is the fact that working on this pathology allows you to cr- you know, to s- to understand and crack some of the difficulties in the mechanism of action of the drug- which they can which would which can also possibly interest a partner- Yeah … Later on down the road. But that’s, again, that’s for them to comment, not me. 

Philip Hemme: Awesome. Just a quick- we had the chairman of, Ipsen on the podcast- Marc de Garidel twice, so- we didn’t talk too much about Ipsen, more about Abivax, but yeah, it’s good.

[00:35:55] The Decision to Exit and Shocking Lessons

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Any question? You can raise your hands. Here we have two questions. I guess you, you raised first. Doing it older. 

Audience: Yeah. Absam Kibria. W- we all know how, much it takes to build a company, take it into clinic, biotech company, and to generate data. My question is that there are many strategy to do that.

What’s the strategy you pursued was, the intention to create an exit opportunity, because you could have continued as an independent? So this is the first question. The second is what is your take message from, at least the transaction or the way it happened for Insya?

Pierre d’Epenoux: Okay, so let’s start with number one, and maybe you’ll have to repeat number two George. Keep the, mic. So- and you know it we all know it we investors support us for an exit. Either an IPO or an exit, and in the case of ImCheck, our investors’ strong preference was an exit and from the beginning.

We’ve we’ve not been obsessed by the exit on a daily basis, but once we started to see the great data that we had and presented at ASCO, it started to feel like there would possibly be a window that would open, and we would seize it. But we were– as we were generating the data and actually opening the exit process with the banker, we were in the process of raising a new round of a hundred million.

So we were really having multiple options so that, as I said earlier, build to build. So basically, we were ready to continue and perform the phase two, three ourselves because we truly believe… By the way, there’s one thing that I didn’t mention which some of you are considering or may consider.

A phase one trial is obviously not a randomized trial, and moving into a seamless phase two or three is is, where you would test the randomization. What we did as a proxy is build an external control arm, so we had an synthetic approach to get some sense as to what the phase two, three could possibly generate as data.

And again I’m, careful. I’m not saying that a, that an external control arm is a phase two/phase three trial, right? But at least it can give you some flavor. And the data that we got out of this three hundred patient external control arm was very strong. I think that has also, And we got the result just before we met with the FDA the end of the phase one meeting. I think it has added some things, and also in the process. The reason why I’m mentioning this, George, it’s because with this, we’re equipped with this information. W-we were just about to share it with investors who would possibly participate in a, series D of a close to a hundred million.

So we were prepared to go all the way. But the exit obviously took preference from the investors than raising an-another hundred million, deal with the uncertainty of the data, the dilution, blah, blah, blah. So 

Audience: yeah. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: And the second question? 

Audience: Lessons. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: The lessons

From, what angle? ‘Cause I’ve learned many– I’ve learned so many lessons . 

Audience: For those who are struggling today. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Ah, y- yeah, and I see a lot of biotech CEOs, biotech companies struggling because they can’t raise or th- the- because the space is very difficult. And I think it’s difficult in Europe.

It’s also difficult in the US. And I see several companies trying to then avoid the investor and instead build collaborations with pharma so that it would bring them some cash to survive or to continue build the, adventure. So one lesson, at the risk of shocking many people, but I very strongly believe in what I’m about to say.

The, lesson that I learned is raise as much cash as possible when you can, and ignore valuation. For me, valuation is out of the scope. And I see, I hear many times CEOs or founders re- well, refusing is maybe a bit extreme, but hesitating re- resisting to re- to raise money when it is available because it’s too much money, because it’s too much dilution, because it’s too valuation is not right.

So y- you don’t care about those matters. I think you need to take the money when it is available. That’s, at least that’s one great lesson I learned. And yes it accelerates the liquid pref. Yes, you pay it at the end, but at least you have the means to support your project, to build your team, to generate the data.

And if you have a delta of 10, 15, 20% of valuation when you have a transaction of a billion, honestly, you don’t care. So for me, the, as a first-time CEO it was a, good lesson. I have obviously a ton of other lessons to share, but- Good, good one. We’re good. Can you give the mic to 

Philip Hemme: Vittorio?

[00:42:05] Why Checkpoint Inhibitors Disappointed Beyond PD-1

Audience: This is just a quick question. I was reflecting on the Regeneron problems with LAG-3, and wondering whether you had anything further to say about checkpoints, and why it is that there wasn’t such an explosion as you mentioned. Do we know any more, in other words? Do we under- 

Pierre d’Epenoux: No I don’t, I, Thanks, Vittorio. I don’t have, I have really nothing to add than what I told you. There was there are, a limited number of checkpoints as we know them, and biotech/pharma have tried every approach possible, either as monotherapy or as a combination, trying many different, yeah, many different approaches.

PD-1 stands and, the rest is still behind IDOs LAG-3, Team-3, and others. Don’t ask me if they will work one day. I’ll let the science demonstrate whether they, they can bring something but what I can tell you is that this has been disappointing for pharma for the biotech companies who’ve run those researches, for pharma who’s conducted many of those programs, and for investors.

And if you’re coming today with a LAC3 TMC program you might have something of great interest that you found but I think it will be difficult to convince both investors and pharma. So as I said earlier, if you do believe in the approach, then you’re gonna have to, present some very strong data.

[00:43:48] Quick-Fire Questions

Philip Hemme: Cool. We’ll finish with just a few, like a quick-fire some quick questions, quick quick answer, quick answers. One is the most common mis- misconception that investors had about the French biotechs Okay. I- One, one sentence. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: I don’t … I think there’s a general consensus that there is great academic, great science in France, so I don’t think that’s, I wouldn’t think that would be a problem.

I think for many years, not, much less since the last five years, investors didn’t have the muscles to support them, so you couldn’t see raise above 30 million or so. I think we were among the f- among the first who raised a 50-million round in 2019. And then we Amulit raised 130 million in ’21, and we raised 96 million in ’22.

Those were, like the, you- the top. And now you see- 100-plus on that- Yeah, 100-plus. So it’s, been one of the issues. I think it’s much less of the issues. The funds are now much stronger. Funds raising now 400, 500. Even Jato raised a billion not long ago. Yeah. So I think this is also behind us.

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Talents, I think there are great talents in France regulatory. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: You’re covering then, yeah. Yeah. 

Philip Hemme: The misconception that it can work. Yeah, but- 

Pierre d’Epenoux: I there’s one last one which, is it’s been a notoriously difficult regulatory environment- difficult contracting with centers.

Our first patient was French. And we had five pre- five countries in Europe and the US, and our first patient came into in France. So honestly, from my perspective- 

Philip Hemme: Yep … works. Last short one, a shorter answer. One of your biotech mentors or heroes? 

Pierre d’Epenoux: Heroes, Marc de Garidel. No, Marc and I know each other very well.

He’s a, he’s almost a good friend. That’s not why you sell 

Philip Hemme: to, Ipsen. 

Pierre d’Epenoux: No. No. Neither why he the company acquired Intercept. No I when I think about what I would like to be as a possible CEO CEO, biotech CEO, Marc comes to mind- Yeah … Quite often. O- one sentence on why. Everything he touches transform into gold.

So yeah, and we talk about it quite often, so yeah. 

Philip Hemme: Yeah. Cool. Thanks, Pierre. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks a lot, everyone. Thank you.

I’m impressed by Pierre’s experience taking a company from inception to one of the best exits in French biotech. I’m also impressed by his crisp knowledge about the oncology space. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please hit the follow, subscribe, or review button. Any of these actions would help a lot more people discover the podcast.

I would also be curious to hear what you think, so if you could drop a comment wherever you are, or shoot me an email at philip@flot.bio. That’s P-H-I-L-I-P @F-L-O-T.bio. All right, thanks for staying to the end, and see you next episode

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