44-45 - Appointments

Cancer Research UK has appointed Dr Catherine Elliott as its new director of research. She is currently college registrar at the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, Edinburgh University, sits on the Board of Edinburgh Innovations, the university’s commercialisation company, and is also a member of the Edinburgh bioQuarter strategy board – a partnership between Scottish Enterprise, NHS Lothian and City of Edinburgh Council. Prior to her current role, Catherine was director of Clinical Research Interests at the Medical Research Council. A medic by training, she is an active honorary consultant specialising in care for pregnant women with obesity and diabetes. She also has several years of experience in academic research focusing on inflammatory pathways involved in parturition. Catherine will join the charity from August 2, 2021.

Interpublic Group agency Virgo Health has announced the appointments of Amanda Moulson as executive director and Gregor Fyfe as senior scientific director. Amanda will be responsible for leading two of the agency's key accounts that will capitalise on her corporate communications, narrative development and patient engagement expertise. She will also play an important role on Virgo’s leadership team. Amanda has worked in healthcare communications for more than 20 years.
Gregor joins Virgo Health as senior scientific director building on the senior expertise in its growing medical education team. He comes from Ashfield Health and has previous experience both in medical research and medical education.

Ashfield Engage, part of UDG Healthcare plc, has appointed Serap Becker as head of Patient Solutions for the DACH region. Joining the Ashfield Engage team following three years as director of Direct to Patient Services at Marken, Serap brings with her 20 years' experience in clinical trials and a customer-driven focus which will enable her to support Ashfield Engage’s global patient solutions and centre of excellence team. Ashfield Advisory also named Mary-Kate McGarry as vice president of Strategy and Emer Jameson as vice president of HR. With 15 years’ experience in management consulting, primarily with Ernst and Young and Accenture, Mary-Kate will be responsible for driving all aspects of the group's strategy and bringing initiatives to life.
Emer will provide HR leadership and insight following a varied career in international HR and commercial roles, including time at Saongroup in China.

Barbara Moorhouse has joined Medica Group's Board as a non-executive director. She will serve as the senior independent director and chair of the Audit Committee. Barbara has extensive business and management experience in the private, public and regulated sectors. In the private sector Barbara has held a series of strategic, commercial and finance roles, including being chief finance officer for two international listed IT companies – Kewill Systems plc and Scala Business Solutions, group finance director at Morgan Sindall, and regulatory director at South West Water. In the public sector, she has been director general at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Transport and chief operating officer at Westminster City Council.

Alessandra Dorigo has been appointed as the new general manager UK, Ireland, Baltics and Nordics for Novartis Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA), a Novartis company pioneering an advanced therapy platform called radioligand therapy (RLT). Alessandra has been with Novartis for over 20 years and having had experience with cancer in her family, when she joined the Novartis Oncology team in 2001, Alessandra developed a stronger personal purpose and aims to have a positive impact on people living with cancer.

Wilmington Healthcare has announced the promotion of Kirsty Fryer to the role of solutions director. In her new role, Kirsty will be responsible for the Quantis portfolio of products offered by the company, which provides data, insight and intelligence to pharma and medtech companies. Kirsty has been solutions consultant at the firm since November 2017 and a valued member of the Wilmington team since 2015. With a PhD in Neurophysiology from the University of Nottingham and currently undertaking an MBA with senior leadership focus she brings a wealth of expertise to the role alongside her existing client relationships.

Woodley BioReg, a regulatory and quality consultancy to the global healthcare and pharmaceuticals sector, has recruited Michelle Hirst as a CMC quality consultant, bringing over 15 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical sector to the role. Joining from Thornton and Ross, Michelle will be responsible for maintaining quality documentation on behalf of clients in both the drug and medical device sectors, as well as supporting their regulatory activities. The company has also appointed Jo Priestley as administration manager, heading up support for the consultancy.

Macrophage Pharma, a company focused on the discovery and early stage development of highly novel small molecule therapeutics with the potential to transform outcome in inflammation, autoimmune disease and cancer through regulation of innate immune response, has announced the appointment of its Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) Dr Venkat Reddy as chief executive officer (CEO). Venkat has a successful track record and extensive strategic and management experience from senior executive roles in both European and US biotech and pharma, including Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (SVP, global head of Translational Sciences), Pfizer (senior director, Strategic Alliances and Partnerships, Centers for Therapeutic Innovation), Sanofi (senior director, head, Bio-Innovation France: Global Biotherapeutics) and Novartis (group leader, GNF). Venkat holds a PhD from the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München and undertook postdoctoral studies in immunology and oncology at the Scripps Research Institute. He has served Macrophage Pharma as CSO since January 2020.

Data insights firm Talking Medicines, a specialist in AI driven ‘social intelligence’ for the pharmaceutical industry, has secured two senior appointments to its leadership team: Nicola Johnson joins as head of Commercial and Grant Le Brun as head of Engineering. Nicola and Grant’s appointments result from the rapid growth for the business, supported by its most recent funding round, with £1.2 million funding secured in November 2020. Nicola joins from Daiichi Sankyo as head of Commercial, while Grant is a senior engineering leader with over 14 years’ experience in building cloud software solutions, leading teams across software engineering, QA, DevOps and cyber security.

Bionical Solutions, a provider of technology enabled engagement and healthcare services to global pharmaceutical, biotech, healthcare companies and the NHS, has announced the promotion of Becky Paul to director of its Digital Business Unit. The new role has been created in response to significant business growth to meet international demand. Becky has over 15 years’ experience working in the healthcare marketing industry. She held a number of positions within contract sales companies and agencies, latterly heading up multichannel operations with a team of over 100 remote eDetailers and Business Managers, before moving to Bionical Solutions in 2018.

Dr Friedrich (Fritz) Asmus has been named as Oxular Limited chief medical officer. He will lead all medical, clinical and regulatory functions to further the company’s lead asset, OXU 001, for the treatment of diabetic macular oedema (DME), and to accelerate the development of its early-product pipeline. Fritz is a board-certified neurologist and pharmacist and, for more than ten years, has successfully headed clinical development programmes in the US, Europe and Asia. Fritz was a key strategic leader in the development of alfibercept and other ophthalmic therapies at Bayer Pharma, and led development activities for rare ophthalmic diseases at ProQR Therapeutics and jCyte. He holds a private lectureship for Neurology at the University Hospital of Tuebingen, Germany, where he was also deputy chair of the Department of General Neurology. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in ophthalmology and neurology.

PhoreMost, a UK-based biopharma dedicated to ‘Drugging the Undruggable’ disease targets, has named Dr Christian Dillon as vice president of Biology. Christian joins PhoreMost from Cancer Research UK’s Therapeutic Discovery Laboratories (CRUK-TDL), where he was associate director, acting as programme director for multiple successful drug discovery alliances with pharmaceutical partners, leading both discovery projects and diverse portfolios from concept through to candidate nomination. He has also led scientific negotiations with commercial partners for CRUK, resulting in a number of multimillion-pound partnerships, and has over 15 years’ experience working at the interface between academia and industry.

Oxford, UK-based PrecisionLife, a global healthcare combinatorial analytics company, has appointed Ray Pawlicki as executive chair to the Board of Directors. Widely recognised as a leader in informatics across pharma and biotech, Ray will work closely with the PrecisionLife Board and chief executive Steve Gardner to help steer the strategic growth of the company. Following an initial career in major corporates such as Pepsi Co, Ray joined the healthcare industry in 2000 to bring technology and digital innovation to pharma. He previously served as chief information officer (CIO) for Biogen, following eight years with Novartis Pharmaceuticals, initially in the US and then four years as Global CIO in Basel, Switzerland.

Appointments

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