May 2023 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 36-37
// YOUR MOVES //
Your Moves
Movers of the Month
Kidney Cancer UK and Kidney Cancer Scotland have announced that their new Chief Executive Officer will be Malcolm Packer.
Malcolm has worked with Kidney Cancer UK since 2007 on a freelance, voluntary basis and on a permanent part-time basis since 2013 as Head of Charity Affairs and Communications.
His achievements include establishing the Kidney Cancer UK Annual Patient Survey – which is approaching its tenth year – running Kidney Cancer Awareness Week and leading the Kidney Cancer UK Accord project. The latter resulted in a formal commission from NHS England to NICE to produce what will be the first national clinical guideline on kidney cancer.
Responding to his appointment, Packer said: “I am extremely proud to have been selected to move this charity forward. There will be challenges to overcome, but I am confident that with the help of the team at Kidney Cancer UK, we can make our support for patients, families and carers better and better.”
Healthcare Improvement Scotland has appointed Scott Muir as the new chair of the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC).
As chair of the SMC, Scott will lead national advice on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of all new medicines for NHS Scotland. SMC’s aim is to ensure that people in Scotland have timely access to medicines that provide most benefit based on evidence and cost.
Scott was a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at Glasgow University, before joining the NHS in 2009. He was Clinical Director for Medical services in West Glasgow for almost four years.
During his career he has run clinical trials in cardiovascular medicine as well as teaching pharmacology and therapeutics. He has been Chair of the Area Drugs and Therapeutics Committee for Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board since 2018.
ABL, a company focused on viruses for gene therapy, oncolytic viruses and vaccine candidates, has announced the appointment of Stéphanie Colloud as General Manager and Chief Operating Officer for Europe. In her new role, she will be responsible for operations at the Lyon and Strasbourg development and clinical production sites, leading a team of 160 staff.
Stéphanie’s priorities include strengthening ABL’s R&D work in its GMP production platforms for adeno-associated viruses.
Over the course of her career at ABL, Stéphanie has gained a vast working knowledge of the company’s sites and teams. After joining the company in 2018, she was appointed director of the Lyon site. For the past four years, she has successfully expanded the site’s operations, significantly growing staff numbers from six to 70 and increasing the turnover sevenfold.
She also headed up the development of the AAV platform at the Lyon site and established a partnership with Coave Therapeutics.
National Pharmacy Association Chief Executive, Mark Lyonette, has announced he will retire in 2024, after five years at the helm of the association.
The NPA is announcing the retirement well in advance so that the Board can start work with a leading recruitment agency to search for the new Chief Executive. The Board is keen to build on the strong foundations established and ensure there is a seamless transition and minimum disruption to the business once the new Chief Executive is in post.
Mark reflected: “After five years at the NPA and 40 years working for and leading national membership organisations, I am looking forward to living a different life.
“I am pleased that in the time that I have been with the NPA we have grown both the membership and customer base and created a profitable, stable membership organisation,” he added.
Abivax has announced the appointment of Michael Ferguson as its new Chief Commercial Officer. Michael brings over 22 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, with an extensive track record in the field of gastroenterology and inflammatory bowel disease.
He has spent the last 16 years of his career in large pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including 13 years in leading commercial positions at Shire/Takeda, followed by Arena Pharmaceuticals, where he served as Vice President Global Commercial Marketing and Planning and as Global Commercial Lead for Etrasimod across all GI Indications.
RNA delivery and therapeutics company SiSaf has announced that it has appointed Dr Richard Goodfellow to its Board of Directors.
Richard draws on four decades of international experience across the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors, including leadership roles in business development and Chief Executive of Scancell, an AIM listed clinical stage immuno-oncology biopharmaceutical company. He has acted as a consultant to SiSaf since 2021.
Optibrium, a leading developer of software and AI solutions for drug discovery, has announced the appointment of Dr Hamed Tabatabaei Ghomi as Head of Research.
The latest in a series of senior-level hires, Hamed brings strategic and industrial research expertise in the chem- and bioinformatics space, backed by an impressive academic track record.
As Director of Research, Hamed will lead Optibrium’s Research Team to develop and implement breakthrough methods, including quantum mechanical and machine learning approaches, to improve the productivity and efficiency of drug discovery.
Engimmune Therapeutics AG has announced the appointment of Dr Lars Nieba as Chief Executive Officer. Dr Søren Mouritsen, co-founder and previous CEO, steps down in a planned transition.
Lars brings more than 25 years of experience in biopharmaceutical leadership in R&D, business and clinical development, venture capital, manufacturing and product strategy and has been CEO and a Scientific Advisor to a number of biotechnology companies.
He has also held previous positions in big pharma and VC firms including Roche, Bayer and Pureos Bioventures where he touched a wide variety of modalities in drug development, from small molecules, through to therapeutic proteins, antibodies and gene therapies.
Ingenza has appointed Steve Jones as its Chief Financial Officer. Steve has over 25 years of industry experience, after holding several senior finance roles across a wide range of business sectors, sizes and ownership models, and will use this expertise to help drive Ingenza’s corporate and financial goals.
Steve has extensive experience in the life sciences field, including being the finance director of a private pathology laboratory, where he helped to quickly scale up business operations in response to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also provides voluntary advice to the Soko Fund, a Scottish charity, which aims to improve opportunities for women in Malawi by funding their university education.
Cognitant Group is boosting its expansion with the appointment of Matthew West as Chief Commercial Officer.
Matthew brings a wealth of experience delivering digital services and artificial intelligence solutions to healthcare and is now spearheading the company’s work within multiple markets including life sciences companies, the NHS, insurers and care providers.
His appointment will help the company expand its digital offerings. He will support the successful onboarding of patients into virtual wards, improve recruitment and retention to clinical trials and further develop personalised support programmes for people with a range of long-term conditions such as kidney disease, asthma and cancer.
Prior to joining Cognitant Group, Matthew was Chief Commercial Officer for Heathily, a health technology company helping to bring AI into mainstream care. Building on his record in business growth and health technology, Matthew will develop Cognitant’s commercial model to expand the reach of accessible and trustworthy health information and support services, which are available in multiple formats including video, games, print, virtual and augmented reality.
Avacta, a company developing innovative, targeted oncology drugs and powerful diagnostics, has announced the appointment of Karen Harrison as Chief Operating Officer of its Therapeutics Division.
In her new role, Karen will be responsible for supporting research and development functions. Karen joins Avacta with over 30 years’ experience managing complex global B2C organisations – designing, planning and implementing strategies, plans and procedures, with a focus on operational excellence, promotion of company culture and vision, and continuous improvement.
Within the last 15 years, she has undertaken senior positions predominantly within the healthcare and life sciences sectors, including Vice President for Talent at Astellas Pharma.
QUANTRO Therapeutics, a company focused on developing novel targeted therapeutics interfering with disease-causing transcriptional programmes in cancer, has announced the appointment of Dr Michael Bauer as Chief Executive Officer.
He will succeed Dr Dieter Nachtigall who has been CEO since QUANTRO’s inception and will transition to an advisory role for the company.
Michael is an experienced biotech entrepreneur and executive with a proven track record as CEO, Board membership, and other senior R&D leadership roles in the life sciences industry. Having worked in global corporations, mid-size and small biotech companies, his focus is advancing innovative, first-in-class cancer therapeutics, including transcription factor targeting drugs, into clinical development.
NRG Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Dr Vad Lazari, who joins in the newly created position of VP of Biology at the company’s facilities in Stevenage.
Vad will be responsible for managing internal and external biology resources to advance the company’s preclinical pipeline of small molecule assets that inhibit the mitochondrial permeability transition pore through a novel mode of action.
Vad brings two decades of experience in R&D gained at Charles River, Pfizer and BioFocus DPI. He joins from Charles River, where he led projects and teams working across a wide range of therapeutic areas in both hit finding and compound optimization projects, including assay development, screening cascade design and biomarker development.
PharmaTimes
PharmaTimes is the UK’s leading pharmaceutical magazine, tracking the trends and issues that affect the industry here in the UK, in Europe and across the world. We deliver independent, authoritative and trustworthy content through impartial, balanced and informed opinion and analysis.