34-35 - Your moves

Ipsen has appointed Guy Oliver as General Manager of its UK & Ireland affiliate. Guy – who joins from his former role as General Manager Belgium and Luxembourg at Novartis – will lead Ipsen’s rapidly growing commercial presence in the UK & Ireland. He brings a wealth of experience across key areas for Ipsen including oncology, neuroscience and rare diseases. As well as becoming General Manager, Guy will act as Head of Site for Ipsen’s Global Hub in Slough.

“I am delighted to be joining Ipsen UK & Ireland at an exciting stage in the company’s growth,” said Guy. “The UK is one of our global hubs and I look forward to working with the team to deliver on Ipsen’s bold ambitions for the UK & Ireland over the coming years, continuing to drive innovation across oncology, neuroscience and rare diseases to improve the options for patient care.”

Originally from New Zealand, Guy worked as a clinical pharmacist before joining the pharmaceutical industry. He has been with Novartis for the past 15 years and his career has spanned medical affairs, marketing and franchise leadership.

Through his previous roles, Guy has gained experience in a broad range of disease areas including cardiovascular, neuroscience, immunology, solid tumours, rare diseases and haematology.

Global real estate advisor CBRE has bolstered its offering by appointing Life Sciences Capital Markets expert John Knight as a Senior Director.

He joins the firm from Carter Jonas LLP where he headed the National Investment & Asset Management team. Since joining Carter Jonas in 2019, John has predominantly focused on the emerging life sciences investment and development markets in the Oxford Cambridge Arc, advising on a number of notable transactions for life sciences investors.

John has 20 years of capital markets' experience, specialising in the science park and out-of-town office markets. Prior to joining Carter Jonas, he was a director at BNP Paribas Real Estate and previously an investment partner at Strutt & Parker.

John has recently advised on the sale of a major ground-up life sciences development opportunity within the Oxford Cambridge Arc to Breakthrough Properties, a leading global developer of life sciences between Tishman Speyer and Bellco Capital.

Evonetix, the synthetic biology company, has announced the appointment of Paul Beastall as Chair of the Board of Directors.

Paul was previously a Non-Executive Director at Evonetix, having joined the Board in 2020. His new appointment as Chair will see him take a more involved role in guiding product development strategy. This announcement follows the company’s recent patent grant for technology enabling thermally controlled DNA synthesis.

Paul has over 20 years’ experience in product development, global consumer markets and strategic consultancy. His most recent role was Strategy Director at Cambridge Consultants, where he worked with the executive team to develop business strategy and partnerships.

PureTech Health – a clinical-stage biotherapeutics company – has announced the appointment of Sharon Barber-Lui to its board of directors as a Non-executive Director and as a member of the audit committee.

She previously led US Oncology Portfolio Market Strategy, Operations and Business Analytics at Merck & Co. During her two decades at Merck, she held multiple financial and operational positions of increasing responsibility, including Chief Financial Officer of US Oncology, Director of US Treasury Operations and regional Treasurer of Asia Pacific.

Sharon brings extensive experience in finance, operations, portfolio management and commercialisation to PureTech’s team.

Reed Smith has added Milan Thakker to its ranks as a life sciences transactional partner in its Global Corporate Group. His experience centres around cross-border M&A, private equity, venture capital and joint ventures.

Milan joins Reed Smith in London after spending over seven years in the Group Legal Transactions team at the Swiss headquarters of Novartis, where he managed some of the pharma giant’s most notable strategic transactions.

Prior to joining Novartis, he specialised in cross-border M&A, private equity, venture capital and corporate law.

Hanover has revealed that former NHS England medicines adviser Malcolm Qualie has joined as a Senior Advisor focused on market access.

From 2013 until January 2022, he was Medicines Lead for Specialised Commissioning at NHS England. Malcolm will support clients to understand the NHS environment as the health system seeks to agree more deals with companies on innovative therapies.

Hanover Health has a European and international market access practice supporting clients to prepare successfully for launch with a wider suite of in-house expertise and advisors including former payers, regulators, industry execs and health system managers.

Third Harmonic Bio has announced the appointment of Adrian S Ray as Chief Scientific Officer. Third is a clinical-stage company developing a first-in-class oral KIT inhibitor for the treatment of severe allergies.

Adrian is an experienced drug developer with more than 25 years’ experience and he will oversee all aspects of non-clinical development of the company’s lead programme, THB001, as well as its ongoing discovery and optimisation work.

Before joining Third Harmonic Bio, he served as Senior Vice President, Biology and Translation at Morphic Therapeutic.

Avacta Group – a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative cancer therapies and powerful diagnostics – has appointed Christina Coughlin, as Non-executive Director to the Board.
Christina has a broad background in biotechnology and global pharmaceuticals, with comprehensive drug development experience spanning programmes in pre-investigational new drug studies through late-stage trials and regulatory approval filings, as well as a track record of building drug development teams in global companies.
She previously served as Chief Medical Officer to Rubius Therapeutics.

CluePoints, experts in software for clinical trials, has appointed Catherine Ditzler as VP Marketing while Céline Daubresse joins as VP People and James Faust is the new VP Business Operations.

Catherine brings more than a decade of experience in the life sciences industry as a creative and insightful marketer. She has extensive knowledge in branding, marketing strategy development, campaign management and content marketing. In her new role, Catherine will define CluePoints' partnership and global marketing strategies.

Meanwhile, Céline has 16 years of experience in HR acquired through several roles in the sector, resulting in a holistic view of the HR functions and a real taste for talent management, employee experience and organization transformation. As VP People, she will be responsible for the overall people experience and capability building.

James is a proven leader with a demonstrated ability to motivate cross-functional teams, deliver results and create sustainable change over a career spanning two decades. He also served in the United States Army as an Operations and Intelligence Officer. In his new role he will support the CEO to help define, operationalise and track the company’s strategic initiatives.

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