PinCell Appoints Veteran Biotech and Biopharma Executives to Management Team and Board of Directors
6.5.2020 19:00:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
PinCell, a biotechnology company developing novel therapies for rare dermatological diseases, announced today the appointment of Gabriella Camboni, M.D., as Chief Executive Officer of PinCell and Member of the Board of Directors, and Luigi Costa as Chairman of the Board. Paola Pozzi, Partner at Sofinnova Partners, also joins PinCell’s Board following a successful seed financing of €1.65 million led by Sofinnova Partners, a leading European life sciences venture capital firm based in Paris, London and Milan. The financing was part of a series of investments recently made through The Sofinnova Telethon Fund, the largest fund in Italy dedicated to early-stage biotech startups targeting cures for rare and genetic diseases.
Dr. Camboni is a clinical pharmacologist with 18 years of experience in oncology drug development. She is Chief Executive Officer of BiovelocITA, Italy’s first biotech accelerator, co-founded by Sofinnova Partners in 2015. Dr. Camboni is also co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Ethical Oncology Science (EOS), an Italian startup dedicated to translational medicine in oncology. Previously, Dr. Camboni co-founded and acted as Head of Development at Novuspharma, a biopharma developing innovative treatments for cancer. Both EOS and Novuspharma are part of Sofinnova Partners’ portfolio alumni.
“I am happy to have the opportunity to help develop a game-changing treatment together with an outstanding scientific team and my long-term associates of Sofinnova Partners,” commented Dr. Camboni.
PinCell also bolstered its Board of Directors with the appointment of Luigi Costa as Chairman of the Board. Mr. Costa has over 25 years of international pharmaceutical and biotech experience. He is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Sofinnova Partners and was the CEO of Nordic Nanovector, a biopharma developing novel targeted therapies for cancer. He also served as Board Member of Oncopeptides AS, a clinical stage biotech company developing a new treatment for Multiple Mieloma. Previously Mr. Costa was Regional Head International at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, acquired by Amgen in 2014, and held several leadership positions with Amgen including Head of International Oncology Franchise, General Manager of Italy and President of France, Amgen’s largest market outside the US. He also held various leadership positions of increasing responsibility with Eli Lilly both in Europe and in the US.
“I am very pleased to have the opportunity to support PinCell in the development of its innovative treatment for a severe autoimmune disease. I am confident that PinCell’s outstanding scientific team, together with my colleagues at Sofinnova Partners, will be able to bring a new therapeutic option to patients," said Mr. Costa.
PinCell’s lead program targets a rare autoimmune bullous disease called Pemphigus, which is characterized by blistering and erosions of the skin and mucous membranes. The condition is chronic, debilitating and potentially life-threatening. PinCell’s unique solution uses an innovative mechanism that inhibits the development of the typical skin blisters, without suppressing the immune system. This is a central factor that makes the treatment less prone to immune-related side effects, enabling patients to have a better quality of life.
Ms. Pozzi commented: “We are pleased to invest in this exceptional team of serial entrepreneurs who have significant clinical expertise in dermatological disorders. They have built strong relationships with US pharma-experienced consultants and international patients’ associations.”
The financing secured last month will advance the company’s development of first-in-class anti-inflammatory therapies for the treatment of rare and severe skin diseases with limited therapeutic options.
Carlo Pincelli, M.D., Professor of Dermatology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and Co-founder of PinCell, said: “We are delighted to have secured financing from Sofinnova Partners, an investor with unparalleled authority and expertise in the biotech domain, as well as the support of experienced biotech executives. Together we are confident we will progress towards clinical studies for the benefit of patients suffering from these debilitating skin conditions.”
About PinCell
PinCell is a biotechnology company targeting a novel pathological pathway to develop first-in-class anti-inflammatory therapies for the treatment of rare, severe skin diseases with high unmet medical need. Based in Milan, Italy, PinCell was founded in October 2008 as an academic spin-off of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia by the world-class dermatology experts Prof. Carlo Pincelli and Dr. Alessandra Marconi. PinCell received seed funding from Sofinnova Partners.
For more information, please visit: www.pincell.it
About Sofinnova Partners
Sofinnova Partners is a leading European venture capital firm specialized in Life Sciences. Based in Paris, France, with offices in London and Milan, the firm brings together a team of 40 professionals from all over Europe, the U.S. and Asia. The firm focuses on paradigm-shifting technologies alongside visionary entrepreneurs. Sofinnova Partners invests across the Life Sciences value chain as a lead or cornerstone investor, from very early-stage opportunities to late-stage/public companies. It has backed nearly 500 companies over more than 48 years, creating market leaders around the globe. Today, Sofinnova Partners has over €2 billion under management.
For more information, please visit: www.sofinnovapartners.com
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200506005517/en/
Contact information
Media
Gabriella Camboni, CEO
+39 0283991300
info@pincell.it
Bommy Lee
Head of Communications, Sofinnova Partners
blee@sofinnovapartners.com
+33 (0) 6 47 71 38 11
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
FDA Issues Modified Risk Tobacco Product Orders for 20 ZYN Nicotine Pouch Products30.6.2026 19:19:00 EEST | Press release
Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) (NYSE: PM) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued Modified Risk Tobacco Product (MRTP) orders for 20 variants of ZYN nicotine pouch products. These are the first MRTP orders granted for nicotine pouches, allowing PMI U.S. to market the following claim for the authorized ZYN products: “Using ZYN instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.” “FDA’s decision is an important moment for the more than 45 million legal-age nicotine consumers in America,” saidStacey Kennedy, PMI U.S. CEO. “Today’s news ensures these adultshave access to accurate, science-based information, including FDA-authorized evidence that switching from cigarettes to ZYN reduces the risk of smoking-related diseases like heart disease and lung cancer,” she added. “More broadly, it reinforces the agency’s science-based approach to evaluating products across the co
Caidya Announces Strategic Combination with Simbec-Orion Bridging Early Scientific Insight and Global Clinical Execution30.6.2026 18:00:00 EEST | Press release
Caidya today announced a strategic combination with Simbec-Orion designed to close the divide between early scientific insight and global clinical execution. The combination of Caidya and Simbec-Orion creates a differentiated specialty clinical CRO platform that enables programs to scale, maintaining focus, speed, and accountability. The strategic combination brings together complementary strengths to create a more complete development partner for innovative biopharma companies. With established operations across Europe, the Americas, APAC, and China, the combined organization provides meaningful expertise and execution capabilities in the regions that matter most. Simbec-Orion brings early-phase clinical pharmacology capabilities alongside deep therapeutic expertise for later stage complex oncology and rare disease trials, helping sponsors shape critical decisions early in the development lifecycle. Together, the organizations strengthen their ability to support complex, cross-border
Archer® Proves Purpose-Built AI Beats General-Purpose LLMs on Regulatory Change Management: 95% Verified Accuracy, 80x Faster, 92% Lower Cost30.6.2026 17:13:00 EEST | Press release
For enterprises deploying AI in compliance, a wrong date is a missed deadline. The more dangerous failure is a wrong answer the model returns with high confidence, one that flows silently into a compliance calendar and is only discovered after the window has passed. Archer® today released results showing purpose-built AI beats a general-purpose large language model (LLM) on regulatory work, and it’s not close. This head-to-head test compared Archer’s purpose-built, vertical-specific AI and proprietary data sets against a leading general-purpose LLM, on a core compliance task: determining the publication, effective and comment-close dates of regulatory documents across six jurisdictions. General-purpose models are a genuine breakthrough, and this is no referendum on their quality. The question Archer set out to answer is narrower and more practical: what it takes to make a specific, high-stakes determination reliable, fast and affordable at scale. A vertical, domain-focused process, gro
Altasciences Supports Key Development Milestone for Steel Therapeutics’ Lead Therapeutic Candidate, Fizurex™30.6.2026 17:08:00 EEST | Press release
Altasciences, a leading drug development organization, today announced a significant milestone in the development of Steel Therapeutics, Inc.’s pivotal toxicology study for its lead product candidate, Fizurex™, for the treatment of anal fissures. The successful completion of the study plays a significant role in the advancement of Fizurex™ toward first-in-human trials. The GLP-compliant study demonstrated a favorable safety profile, which has advanced Steel Therapeutics' plans to submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for Fizurex™ to the FDA in Q3 2026. Fizurex™, a patent-pending, single-use topical wipe, was designed to provide a standardized, accessible treatment option for a painful and often undertreated medical condition. The product builds on years of use through compounding pharmacy prescriptions and is now advancing toward clinical development and regulatory review. "We are proud to have supported Steel Therapeutics with the generation of the high-quality safety d
Interactive Brokers Expands Access to Korean Equities with Launch of Nextrade ATS30.6.2026 17:00:00 EEST | Press release
Interactive Brokers (Nasdaq: IBKR), an automated global broker, today announced the launch of select Korean equities through Nextrade, South Korea's first Alternative Trading System (ATS). The addition of Nextrade builds on Interactive Brokers' earlier launch of the Korea Exchange (KRX), through which it became the first major US-based broker to provide global investors with direct access to Korean equities. Clients trading on Nextrade benefit from significantly extended trading hours and access to additional liquidity. Interactive Brokers has enabled IB SmartRouting℠ across both the Korea Exchange (KRX) and Nextrade, automatically routing orders to the venue offering the best price. This helps clients achieve best execution while providing greater flexibility and more opportunities to participate in one of Asia's most dynamic equity markets. Korea's equity market ranks among the top global exchanges by market capitalization and is home to world-leading companies such as Samsung Electr
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom