Patrice Denèfle is the new Head of the Roche Institute for Research and Translational Medicine, created by Roche France

Ph.D HDR Associate Professor Patrice P. Denèfle has pursued a dual career in Life Sciences and Healthcare industries. He joined Rhône-Poulenc in 1983 while he was still completing his dissertation at the Pasteur Institute. He obtained a Ph.D in Microbiology from the Ecole Supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielle de la ville de Paris1 (ESPCI). In 1997, he received an HDR in Molecular Pharmacology from the Lille University on his work on molecular dissection and therapeutic approaches on reverse cholesterol transport. He was later appointed Professor of molecular and cell biology at University Paris-Descartes. Patrice has also completed several programs at the CEDEP and INSEAD, namely in international alliances and partnership management. He is co-author of over 100 publications and 38 patents.

During his career, Patrice Denèfle has held senior positions in major pharmaceutical companies and has initiated and led multiple programs in Human genetics, functional genomics and pharmacogenomics at Rhône-Poulenc Rorer, RPR Gencell and Aventis Pharma, then Sanofi-Aventis. After three years as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and head of translational R&D at Genethon, a non-for-profit Biotech financed by the French Association against neuromuscular diseases, he joined Ipsen in 2010 as Senior Vice-President of Digital & Translational Sciences, a global platform fully integrating Medical, Computer sciences and Biomarker enabling decisions approaches towards personalized Medicine across the R&D organization.

In 2014, he founded a start-up (MedBiomiX Partners SAS), which is running a network of excellence, clustering more than 15 biotechs and playing an active role in data generation and in addressing, solving and improving concrete personalized medicine issues. In less than 6 months, the network has been assembled, actively started its collaboration with Academic centers of Excellence and has initiated several projects.
Based on his scientific and industrial record, Patrice Denèfle has accumulated strong skills in translational research and early development, as well as a significant experience in the pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology, along with management skills of networks of excellence.

“Roche has been deeply committed with the French academic research for many years. In this context of increasing open innovation networks and partnerships, we aim at strengthening and expanding the links between Roche, Genentech and Chugai and the French scientific and medical communities”, said Patrice Denèfle. Patrice Denèfle is also a member of Roche France extended executive committee.

1. The City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Education Institution