Jonathan Knowles named as executive chairman of the board of Immunocore and Adaptimmune

UK-based biotech company Immunocore has appointed Jonathan Knowles as the new executive chairman of the board of directors with immediate effect.

Dr Knowles (pictured), who has been a non-executive director of Immunocore since 2010, succeeds Nicholas Cross who has been chairman since the company was founded in 2008 and will remain on the board as deputy chairman. Dr Knowles will also take on the role of executive chairman of the board of directors at Immunocore's sister company Adaptimmune,  the Oxford-based T cell therapy company pioneering engineered T cell receptors for the treatment of cancer and infectious disease.

Dr Knowles was formerly president of group research and a member of the executive committee at F.Hoffman-LaRoche, Switzerland, for 12 years. He also served as a board member at Roche’s subsidiary Genentech for more than 10 years and was a member of the board of Chugai Pharmaceuticals, majority owned by Roche. Prior to joining Roche in 1997, he was research director at Glaxo Wellcome Europe.