About us: Leadership

Florent Ferré has acquired broad international and leadership experience over the last 20 years in the Healthcare industry. Before joining Igyxos, he founded a consultancy firm in 2022, supporting European biotech companies on fund raising and business development activities. Prior to that, he has spent 16 years at Sanofi in corporate mergers & acquisitions and in finance positions, in both developed and emerging countries.
Florent holds a Master of Science in Biology and Physiology from Pierre and Marie Curie University. He is a graduate from EDHEC Business School and holds an executive corporate finance certificate from London Business School.  

Marie-Christine Maurel received a Master of Science degree in Biological Sciences and a Ph.D. in Reproductive Physiology from Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris, France. She also served as a post-doctoral fellow in Immunology at the Institute Pasteur in Paris. She has more than 25 years' experience as scientist at INRA (National Institute of Agronomic Research) in the fertility field and 10 years' biotech experience since 2012. Her research activity focused on the endocrinology of reproduction, especially on the biochemistry and immunogenic properties of pituitary gonadotropic hormones (FSH, LH and CG).

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In 2009 she was the winner of the french "National competition for the creation of innovative companies" and founded ReproPharm®, a biotech company based at the INRA center of Tours, France. Since 2012 she was CEO and scientific director at ReproPharm.

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In 2017, she splitted Repropharm's activities and founded two new and independent companies: Repropharm Vet® for the development of therapeutics in animal health and Igyxos® for the development of therapeutics in human health. Currently, she is the Chief Scientific Officer of Igyxos and the Chaiman of the Board of Directors.

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In 2011, the French Government nominated her for the Chevalier degree by the National Order of the Legion of Honour, which is the highest order of merit in France.

François Desmarest brings its extensive experience as CEO, Operating Partner, CFO and Board Member for private equity in  startups and larger companies.
He has worked in many different areas: High tech, medtech, medias, services and pharma and co-founded several companies in the past.
His specialty is structuration, organization, deep change, development and restructuration situations, M&A, fund raising.

Elke Bestel has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Her areas of expertise include women's health, with a focus on fertility and reproductive medicine. From 2008 to 2022, she served as a medical and operational lead, overseeing several development programs for biotech companies. She played a key role in developing new chemical entities, including Yselty® (ObsEva) for uterine fibroids and endometriosis, and Esmya® (PregLem) for uterine fibroids.
Dr. Bestel holds a medical degree from Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, and completed her studies at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. She received her training in gynecology and obstetrics in Switzerland.

Thierry Ziegler has more than 25 years of experience in biopharmaceutical development. Prior to joining Igyxos, he led cell therapy production activities at Cellectis. Previously, Dr. Ziegler also served as Head of Process Development at Merck-Serono, as well as head of biopharmaceutical development at Sanofi. During his career, he had the opportunity to work on multiple monoclonal antibodies as well as many other types of Biologics modalities ranging from recombinant proteins to CAR-T cells. He joined Igyxos in February 2021 as Chief Operating Officer to oversee subcontracted activities related to the development of IGX12. In this role, Dr. Ziegler oversees IGX12 CMC development from cell line generation to GMP manufacturing. He received his Ph.D. in bioprocess engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States.

Didier Coquoz, PhD in clinical pharmacology, is a 30+ years seasoned pharma R&D executive (VP R&D and CEO). He has been instrumental in the development/regulatory management from the development candidate up to phase and including III studies and registration of close to 40 biologics, monoclonal antibodies, peptides, cell-based therapeutics, NCEs, of which 4 reached the market world-wide and one has been recently sold to a European pharma that is running its final phase III program. He is/was instrumental within small, medium and large biotech/pharmas.

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He held positions as CEO and VP R&D on both sides of the Atlantic. He is currently active at designing and supporting the manufacturing, toxicology, clinical and regulatory programs of selected biotechs.