October 2022 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 34-35
// YOUR MOVES //
Your Moves
Movers of the Month
SOTIO Biotech, a clinical stage immuno-oncology company, has appointed Martin Steegmaier as Chief Scientific Officer. Martin brings over 20 years of experience in oncology drug discovery, drug development and business development.
His extensive knowledge of the biotech industry and clinical immuno-oncology will be crucial as SOTIO continues to advance multiple assets through the clinic. He will be responsible for preclinical and translational research globally.
Most recently, he served as the Global Head of Research at MorphoSys following its acquisition of Constellation Pharmaceuticals, where he led and integrated both research units into one global organisation, pursuing cutting-edge immuno-oncology drug discovery approaches.
His career began in positions with increasing responsibility, including advancing first-in-class oncology projects into the clinic with Boehringer Ingelheim’s Oncology Drug Discovery Department. He later joined Roche Pharmaceuticals as Head of Discovery for Large Molecule Research and led the generation and profiling of novel therapeutic antibodies for different disease areas, as well as design and discovery of novel biotherapeutic formats.
Phebra has announced the appointment of Prisca Drysdale to the newly established role of Chief Global Regulatory Officer.
Ms Drysdale has over 25 years’ experience as a pharmaceutical and healthcare industry executive operating in both domestic and international markets, with strong scientific affairs and quality assurance capabilities and expertise in regulatory, compliance, clinical trials, medical affairs, patient safety and external policy.
Welcoming Prisca to Phebra Group, Chief Executive Officer Andre Vlok said her appointment to the newly established role of Chief Global Regulatory Officer would support the growth of Phebra’s portfolio of critical medicines in Australian and overseas markets.
Oxford-based Exscientia, a leader in advanced AI application and complex drug discovery, has announced the appointment of Caroline Rowland as the company’s newly created Chief People Officer.
Prior to joining the company, Caroline served as the Vice President of Talent at Arm where she led the firm’s talent management, leadership development and diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. She currently serves as a Board Member at the Cambridge Network, a not-for-profit organisation focused on bridging the vibrant technology and education sectors.
Genomenon, an AI-driven genomics company, has revealed that Dr Sam Globus has been appointed Vice President of operations. He will support Genomenon’s goal to curate the entire human genome, and will manage the rapid growth of the company’s data science and variant curation work.
Before joining Genomenon, Sam was the VP of strategy and operations at Eagle Genomics working to launch its lead product, a microbiome data analysis platform. Prior to Eagle Genomics, he was the VP of business strategy and operations at Celmatix, where he helped develop and launch the world's first genetic test for markers of infertility. While at Celmatix, he was one of the first users of Genomenon’s Mastermind Genomic Search Engine to help his team streamline their genomic variant curation work.
LEO Pharma has appointed Paul Navarre as a new member of its Board of Directors.
He currently serves as chairman of the Board of Directors at HTL and Arkopharma, Vice Chairman of Hallura and strategic advisor to other companies. He has also held senior positions at Ferring and Allergan. Prior to that, he spent 15 years at Procter & Gamble managing multiple countries and global brands.
Paul has a solid track record of delivering sustainable top line growth and building high performance organisations in the specialty pharmaceutical business through scientific innovation and customer-centric approaches.
Sequana Medical – specialists in the treatment of drug-resistant fluid overload in liver disease, heart failure and cancer – has announced the appointment of Alexandra Clyde as an independent Non-Executive Director.
Alexandra is a highly experienced global business executive with a track record of successfully navigating health economics and reimbursement in the medical device industry. The company has also revealed that Erik Amble will step down as a member of the Board of Directors but will continue to attend the meetings as a board observer.
ViroCell has announced the appointment of Susan Nichols as its Chief Business Officer.
Susan has a distinguished track record as an executive and business development professional and currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, the leading international advocacy organisation dedicated to realising the promise of regenerative medicines and advanced therapies.
ViroCell, a contract development and manufacturing organisation, is addressing the global viral vector supply demand imbalance that constrains the timely manufacture of novel cell and gene therapies. ViroCell focuses exclusively on the design and GMP manufacture of viral vectors and gene modified cells for clinical trials.
BioAgilytix Labs has announced the appointment of Dr Linda Robbie as Chief Operating Officer.
For the past three years, Linda has served as Vice President and General Manager of Boston operations, responsible for leading all bioanalytical services. During this time, she directed all initiatives relating to science, technology and laboratory operations. She has more than 25 years of experience with biomarker assay technologies and was previously Senior Vice President of Science and Laboratory Operations at Cambridge Biomedical and joined BioAgilytix’s leadership team when the company was acquired in November 2019. She has also held senior roles with Quintiles and Immucor.
Rentschler Biopharma has announced the appointment of Mark Caswell as Vice President, Site Head. Mark has more than 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Rentschler Biopharma, he worked for over six years at Lonza Biologicals, most recently as Head of Operations at the Portsmouth site.
At Lonza, he supported the design, construction, start up and transition to operations of a facility based on single-use technology, including responsibility for the entire site operations of nearly 1,400 people as the interim Site Head. Before that, he worked for many years at Sanofi Genzyme.
Dr Edward Green has joined NCIMB as Chief Executive Officer. He takes over from Dr Carol Phillips who is retiring after 12 years in the post.
Edward joins NCIMB from CHAIN Biotechnology, a microbiome therapeutics company, which he founded and has led since 2015. Prior to that he founded Green Biologics, a biotechnology company using bacteria to manufacture renewable chemicals.
Based in Aberdeen, NCIMB is a well-established provider of analytical services, microbial cultures and biological material storage to a growing global client base across multiple sectors including life sciences.
Verona Pharma has appointed Matthew Casbon as Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Training, and Matthew Rysavy, Vice President of Market Access and Trade. They each bring 25 years of commercialisation expertise spanning marketing, sales, training, market access, trade and business development across a variety of therapeutic areas.
Previously, Matthew Casbon served as Chief Business Officer at Target RWE, a real-world evidence solutions provider, where he was instrumental in building the business development function and completing a Series C financing. Prior to this he was at Circassia Pharmaceuticals, a global respiratory pharmaceutical and device company and Business Director for the Cystic Fibrosis Franchise at Solvay.
Meanwhile Matthew Rysavy spent many years in market access and trade roles covering a broad range of products, channel management and distribution strategies at Verona Pharma. Prior to that he served as Head of Market Access and Trade at BioDelivery Sciences International, where he was responsible for building the Market Access team to support existing and launch products.
Mainz Biomed, a molecular genetics diagnostic company specialising in the early detection of cancer, has appointed of Dr Douglas Rex to its medical advisory board. Douglas is the latest industry expert to join the board, which was established to support Mainz’s forthcoming pivotal trial for ColoAlert, the detection test for colorectal cancer.
Douglas is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine, Chancellor’s Professor at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and Director of Endoscopy at Indiana University Hospital in Indianapolis.
He graduated from Harvard College, served as Chief Medical Resident at Indiana University Hospital and also worked at the faculty at Indiana University. He is a full-time clinical gastroenterologist at Indiana University Hospital.
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