GenSight Biologics, a French company that is developing gene therapy based solutions for ophthalmologic diseases, has appointed Jean-Philippe Combal as Chief Operating Officer.
Combal has 23 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He worked at Fovea Pharmaceuticals from 2006 to 2011, as Vice President, Director of Development, where he was instrumental in the development of all products leading to Fovea’s acquisition by Sanofi in 2009. He then held the position of Vice President, Strategic Marketing for the Ophthalmic Division of Fovea-Sanofi. Since 2011, Dr Combal was at Galderma International. Prior to this he worked at Servier, Pierre-Fabre Medicament, Fournier-Solvay Pharma and ExonHit Therapeutics.
GenSight’s lead product, GS010, is a gene replacement therapy currently being investigated in a Phase 1 clinical study to treat Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), a rare mitochondrial disease that leads to irreversible sight loss in teenagers and young adults and for which there is no treatment available.
GenSight is also developing an optogenetic therapy approach to restore vision in patients with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative condition of the retina that leads to blindness. Optogenetics is a gene therapy based approach designed to re-sensitise dysfunctional photoreceptor cells in the retina by introducing photosensitive proteins using viral vectors.
