Tollys welcomes Dr. Jean-Pierre Armand as member of its scientific advisory board

Lyon, France, March 9, 2021 — Tollys, a biopharmaceutical company developing TL-532, the first synthetic specific agonist of Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) cancer immunotherapy, today announces that Dr. Jean-Pierre Armand will be joining its scientific advisory board and that Professor Jean-Yves Blay has been appointed as the board’s chairman. The strengthening of this advisory body brings the company one step closer to its first phase I clinical trials, which are planned for 2022.

“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Jean-Pierre Armand to our scientific advisory board,” said Vincent Charlon, CEO of Tollys. “As a specialist in oncology, Jean-Pierre is a valuable addition to our scientific team, especially with the first clinical trials for our candidate drug TL-532 in mind; a key stage in our development. The nomination of Professor Jean-Yves Blay as chairman of the scientific advisory board confirms that the company is well on its way towards entering the clinical phase.”

An active member of the medical oncology community, Dr. Jean-Pierre Armand (MSc) is a senior consultant at the Cancer Campus of the Gustave Roussy Institute in Paris (France) and a visiting professor of oncology at Yunnan University in China. Until 2012, he was general director of the Institut Claudius Regaud in Toulouse, France. In 2014, he oversaw the construction of a new oncology center at the University Cancer Institute, also in Toulouse.

“It is an honor to be joining the Tollys scientific advisory board. The company’s developments in the field of immunotherapy are promising: there is currently no TLR3 agonist on the market, although this target has been clinically validated in the past,” said Dr. Jean-Pierre Armand.

Dr. Armand will sit alongside the other eminent members of the Tollys scientific advisory board:

• Professor Jean-Yves Blay — Chairman of the Tollys scientific advisory board, professor of medical oncology at the Claude Bernard Lyon I University and managing director of the Léon Bérard Center in Lyon (France). Professor Blay is responsible for the Clinical Reference Network for Sarcomas in France (NetSarc-ResOs) and is a member of the teaching faculty of the Sarcoma Group of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). He sits on the advisory board of the French Cancer Society (SFC)
• Jean-Pierre Abastado — Graduate of the École Polytechnique, Dr. Abastado obtained his doctorate in biological sciences from the University of Paris VI, he has occupied multiple positions at the Pasteur Institute in Paris (France) and the NIH in Bethesda (US). He also led a group of eight people in the unit of Professor Philippe Kourilsky, specializing in molecular biology and fundamental immunology. He was responsible for immuno-oncology research and development at the Servier laboratory
• Bruno Osterwalder — Board-certified in hematology and oncology with 15 years experience in academic and clinical practice in the fields of internal medicine, hematology and oncology, Dr. Osterwalder spent over 24 years working in the pharmaceutical industry; first at Roche and then at Merck-Serono, in clinical research and business development, with the focus on hemato-oncology and on immuno-oncology
• Stanley Plotkin — Consultant for the vaccines industry and emeritus professor at the Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, and the University of Pennsylvania (US). Dr. Plotkin developed the rubella vaccine that is now used all over the world. He has played a key role in the development and application of various other vaccines

About Tollys

Tollys is a biopharmaceutical company focused on innate immunity, particularly on the biology and modulation of the TLR3 receptor. Tollys is pioneering TL-532, a new immunotherapy to treat various types of cancer.

Tollys discovered and patented a family of TLR3 agonists and selected TL-532 as its lead-candidate. TL-532 is a structurally defined double-stranded RNA, produced synthetically and highly specific to the TLR3 receptor. The specificity for the TLR3 receptor and its defined 70 base pair sequence differentiates TL-532 from all other TLR3 agonists tested to date in clinical trials.

Founded in 2015 by senior scientists from the leading European Cancer Research Center in Lyon and the Centre Léon Bérard, Tollys is located in Lyon, France. The company has raised a total of €6M ($7.1M) from private investors and received a grant of €1.5M ($1.8M) from Bpifrance.

www.tollys.fr