enGene Honored by BioSpace as a 2026 Best Place to Work, Underscoring Strong Culture and Mission-Driven Innovation
enGene Holdings Inc. (“enGene” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: ENGN), a clinical-stage, non-viral genetic medicines company, announced that it has been named to the BioSpace 2026 Best Places to Work list, a leading industry recognition highlighting the most compelling, inclusive, and innovation-supportive workplaces in the life sciences sector. With this honor, enGene joins an elite group of 50 U.S.-based employers regarded as among the most desirable organizations for life science professionals.
This distinction reflects enGene’s growth, its mission-centric culture, and its unwavering drive to reshape therapeutic outcomes for patients with urological cancers. With a commitment to creating a supportive environment that fosters creativity, collaboration, and scientific excellence, the Company continues to emerge as a destination for top biotech talent.
Recognition Highlights enGene’s People-First Mission
Ron Cooper, President and Chief Executive Officer of enGene, noted that the recognition is a testament to the Company’s core principles and its dedication to advancing breakthrough medicine:
“Being named a BioSpace Best Place to Work is meaningful validation of our efforts to create a supportive, inspiring workplace environment. Our mission—to deliver non-viral medicines that improve the lives of patients facing urological cancers—drives everything we do. We are turning that purpose into action by advancing our late-stage clinical asset, detalimogene, for individuals with early forms of bladder cancer.”
This acknowledgment, Cooper added, demonstrates that enGene’s culture and scientific priorities are aligned. The Company’s focus on patient-centered innovation, employee empowerment, and continual learning forms a foundation that helps it attract and retain top-tier talent in an increasingly competitive biotechnology and life sciences labor market.
Advancing Science with Purpose: A Late-Stage Pipeline Focused on Bladder Cancer
enGene’s operational ethos is deeply tied to its mission: activating the immune system to help save the lives of bladder cancer patients. The Company’s most advanced candidate, detalimogene voraplasmid (“detalimogene,” previously known as EG-70), represents a non-viral gene therapy platform designed to modulate immune activity within the bladder to combat cancer.
Detalimogene is currently undergoing evaluation in the Phase 2 LEGEND trial, a multicohort study that includes a pivotal cohort of patients with high-risk, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) with carcinoma in situ (CIS). This patient population faces limited treatment options, frequent disease recurrence, and often a path toward invasive surgical approaches, including cystectomy.
The LEGEND trial’s ongoing clinical progress represents a crucial step forward as enGene aims to bring a novel, accessible, non-viral genetic therapeutic option to individuals whose disease has not responded to established standards of care. Detalimogene and its clinical development reflect the Company’s larger goal: leveraging its proprietary delivery technologies to solve one of oncology’s significant unmet needs.
Culture Anchored in Values: Collaboration, Integrity, and Patient Focus
Beyond the lab, enGene’s recognition highlights its dedication to a values-driven organizational structure. The Company emphasizes several cultural pillars:
- Patients First — Every scientific, clinical, and business decision is made with patients’ needs at the forefront.
- Collaborative Work Style — Interdisciplinary teamwork is encouraged across scientific, clinical, and operational domains.
- Results with Integrity — Employees are empowered to pursue ambitious goals responsibly, guided by the highest ethical and quality standards.
These values shape not only the Company’s research direction but also its hiring philosophy, career development investments, and internal communication practices. As competition for experienced life sciences talent intensifies globally, enGene’s culture, purpose, and leadership are key differentiators that fuel ongoing momentum.
Second Major Corporate Honor in 2025
This BioSpace designation marks enGene’s second major accolade this year. In June, the Company was named Biotech Company of the Year by BIOTECanada, an award presented to organizations demonstrating exceptional innovation, leadership, and strategic impact on the Canadian biotechnology ecosystem.
Notably, this was the second time enGene received the award, illustrating its sustained influence and achievement in research, clinical progress, and corporate development. The recognition further reinforces enGene’s status as a global biotechnology innovator advancing genetic medicine outside traditional viral-based paradigms.
About BioSpace’s Best Places to Work
The annual BioSpace Best Places to Work list recognizes employers that distinguish themselves in workplace quality and employee satisfaction. Companies are evaluated based on thousands of votes and ratings submitted by community members across the life sciences industry.
The ranking weighs several dimensions, including:
- Company Culture
- Leadership Quality
- Innovation and R&D Focus
- Career Advancement Opportunities
- Organizational Reputation
Companies honored within this competitive list are seen as standout destinations for scientific professionals seeking mission-aligned environments focused on advancement, empowerment, and discovery.
enGene’s inclusion underscores the positive perception of its workplace culture and its broader reputation within the life sciences community. It further signals to prospective employees, partners, and investors that the Company is building not only cutting-edge science but also an enduring organizational foundation.
Understanding Non-Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer (NMIBC)
Bladder cancer remains one of the more prevalent and complex urological cancers, with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) accounting for the vast majority of newly diagnosed cases. NMIBC develops when cancer is limited to the inner layers of the bladder and has not yet penetrated the bladder muscle.
Despite its “non-muscle invasive” designation, NMIBC presents significant clinical and emotional burden due to high recurrence risk, need for continued surveillance, and limited treatment options for patients unresponsive to standard therapies.
Types of NMIBC
NMIBC generally presents in two forms:
- Papillary Disease — Characterized by protruding tumor growths extending from the bladder wall, which are typically removed through surgical resection.
- Carcinoma in situ (CIS) — A flat, multifocal form of cancer that cannot easily be resected.
Both presentations can coexist, complicating diagnosis and management.
Prevalence and Disease Burden
Approximately 75%–80% of newly diagnosed bladder cancer cases are NMIBC. Patients typically undergo frequent cystoscopies, surveillance imaging, and repeated interventions over several years. This long-term management makes NMIBC both a personal and economic challenge:
- Patient Burden — Ongoing disease monitoring and treatment can profoundly affect quality of life.
- Clinical Burden — Intensive resource use is required, including recurring surgeries, intravesical therapies, and specialized imaging.
- Economic Burden — The cumulative cost of surveillance and intervention creates one of the highest lifetime treatment expenses among cancers.
Limited Treatment Options After BCG Failure
The standard of care for high-risk NMIBC is Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), an intravesical immunotherapy developed decades ago. While BCG is effective for many, up to 50%–70% of high-risk patients experience recurrence or fail to respond. For those with persistent or recurring CIS, the next recommended treatment is often radical cystectomy, the complete surgical removal of the bladder.
Cystectomy can be curative, but it significantly impacts quality of life and carries major risks. As a result, the field has been seeking less invasive alternatives—particularly therapeutic options that can harness immune activation without requiring viral delivery mechanisms.
The Promise of Newer Therapeutic Approaches
enGene’s investigational therapy, detalimogene, seeks to address this unmet medical need through an innovative non-viral gene therapy approach that stimulates localized immune activity while offering convenience and accessibility.
If ultimately successful in clinical evaluation, detalimogene could provide an important new option for patients who would otherwise face highly invasive surgery or persistent disease.
Continuing Momentum
Being named a BioSpace Best Place to Work for 2026 reflects more than enGene’s internal workplace environment—it reinforces the Company’s growing role as a next-generation innovator in cancer therapeutics. Combined with its recent recognition as BIOTECanada’s Biotech Company of the Year, the Company continues to build credibility as one of the most promising clinical-stage companies focused on transforming urological cancer treatment.
With its values supporting its scientific trajectory, enGene remains committed to deploying its non-viral genetic medicine platform to help patients and to developing a organizational culture where employees feel motivated, empowered, and united by purpose.
The Company’s achievements, along with its Phase 2 LEGEND trial progress, signal continued opportunities for growth, impact, and leadership across the biotechnology landscape.
Detalimogene is a novel, investigational, non-viral gene therapy for patients with high-risk, non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC), including Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive disease. It is designed to be instilled in the bladder and elicit a powerful yet localized anti-tumor immune response.
Detalimogene was developed using the Company’s Dually Derivatized Oligochitosan® (DDX) platform, a technology designed to transform how gene therapies are accessed by patients and utilized by clinicians. Medicines developed with the DDX platform can potentially overcome the limitations of viral-based gene therapies, reduce complexities related to safe handling and cold storage, and streamline both manufacturing processes and administration paradigms.
Detalimogene has received Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) and Fast Track designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) based on its potential to address the high unmet medical need for patients with BCG-unresponsive, carcinoma in situ (CIS) NMIBC with or without resected papillary tumors who are unable to undergo cystectomy.
The RMAT program is intended to expedite the development and review of regenerative medicine therapies for serious or life-threatening conditions, where preliminary clinical evidence suggests the potential to address unmet medical needs. Similarly, Fast Track designation is a process designed to facilitate the development and expedite the review of drugs to treat serious conditions and fill an unmet medical need.
enGene is a clinical-stage biotechnology company mainstreaming genetic medicines through the delivery of therapeutics to mucosal tissues and other organs, with the goal of creating new ways to address diseases with high clinical needs. enGene’s lead program is detalimogene voraplasmid (also known as detalimogene, and previously EG-70) for patients with Non-Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer (NMIBC), a disease with a high clinical burden.
Detalimogene is being evaluated in the ongoing multi-cohort LEGEND Phase 2 trial, which includes a pivotal cohort studying detalimogene in high-risk, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive patients with carcinoma in situ (CIS) with or without concomitant papillary disease. Detalimogene was developed using enGene’s proprietary Dually Derivatized Oligochitosan (DDX) platform, which enables penetration of mucosal tissues and delivery of a wide range of sizes and types of cargo, including DNA and various forms of RNA. To learn more, please visitenGene.com and follow us on LinkedIn, X and BlueSky.
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