42-43 - Appointments

Amanda Pritchard has been appointed as NHS England’s new chief executive officer. Pritchard is set to become the first woman in the NHS’ history to hold the top post. In this role, she will be responsible for an annual budget of over £130bn, ensuring that everyone in the country receives high quality care. Prior to taking on the role of chief executive, Pritchard served as the NHS’ chief operating officer for two years. Before that, she was chief executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London and also previously was deputy chief executive at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust. She began her career in the NHS as a graduate management trainee in 1997 and has held a number of other NHS management positions.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning-focused company BenevolentAI has appointed François Nader as chairman. Nader is an experienced biopharma executive, currently serving a chairman of Talaris and Acceleron Pharma. He is also an independent board director at Moderna and Alexion and as senior adviser at Blackstone Life Sciences. Nader’s most recent operating role was as president, chief executive officer and executive director of NPS Pharma from 2008 to 2015. As chairman of BenevolentAI, he will sit alongside industry experts, including the recently appointed non-executive director Nigel Shadbolt and the company’s founder and former chairman Ken Mulvany, who will remain as non-executive director.

Laura Steele has been appointed as president and general manager for UK, Ireland and Northern Europe at Eli Lilly. Steele brings 18 years’ experience with Lilly to her new role, joining from Lilly’s corporate business development division, where she specialised in innovation partnerships, large-scale projects in M&A, investments and joint ventures. In her new role, she will lead Lilly’s commercial business operations in six countries, across the company’s current and emerging portfolio in diabetes, oncology, immunology and neuroscience. In a statement, Lilly said Steele is also a ‘global champion of diversity and inclusion’ within the company, with a passion for overcoming inequalities and building high-performing teams.

Bionical Solutions has appointed David Bournes as business development director, working across the company’s health outcomes, digital and business units. Bournes has over 30 years of experience in the pharma industry, including ten years in the outsourcing sector. He has held a number of senior operational and managerial roles within blue chip pharma companies. Prior to joining Bionical, he most recently worked as account director at a leading UK pharma company and as a project manager, leading global innovation projects.

Nick Foster has joined Cambridge-headquartered contract research and drug discovery company Metrion Biosciences as chief commercial officer and head of global business development. Following an early career as a laboratory scientist, Foster moved into business development, holding various positions including associate director, business development Europe for BioFocus Limited (now Charles River Laboratories). He also previously served as head of commercial operations at Optibrium Limited and director, business development for WuXi AppTec.

RareCan – a new company with a focus on accelerating research into rare cancers – has appointed Anita Cooper as non-executive director. Cooper has over 30 years’ global business experience, having worked across diverse functions, skill levels and geographies. Her experience spans strategy development and implementation, risk management, operations and technology-enabled process transformation across the US, Latin America, Europe, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China. She is currently a non-executive director for clinical research organisation Simbec-Orion, and previously served as an executive officer and senior-vice president of Parexel.

Ori Biotech has appointed Kevin Gordon and Stuart Milne to its senior management team. Gordon joins as chief data and operating officer, while Milne will take on the role of chief technology officer. In his new role, Gordon will lead the development of Ori’s cloud data analytics platform while working to accelerate the company’s leadership in digital, cloud-based cell and gene therapy manufacturing platforms. Milne brings a wealth of experience launching a fully digital manufacturing process in CGT to Ori, gained while working in his previous role as vice president of IT at Tmunity Therapeutics.

Clare Gerada is set to become the next president of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) from 20 November. She will take over the post from Amanda Howe, whose two-year term in the position will come to an end. Gerada served as college chair of the RCGP between 2010-2013 and has remained on the College Council since then as a nationally elected member. Currently, she is the longest-serving Council member, having continuously been on the RCGP Council since 1998. Gerada is also a member of the BMA’s council, co-chair of the NHS Assembly and is founder and medical director of Practitioner Health, which provides mental health support to GPs. She is a partner in the Hurley Group and a practising GP in South London.

Specialist contract research organisation (CRO) PHASTAR has named Charles Gelb as its new chief commercial officer (CCO). Gelb brings over 20 years’ experience across pharma companies and CROs, providing critical insight into the needs of pharma, biotech and medical device sponsors. He also brings the knowledge to build and manage a large, global sales and marketing team through periods of growth. In his role as CCO at PHASTAR, Gelb will focus on devising and delivering the company’s global sales and marketing strategy, while managing and guiding the business development team and marketing activity.

Bruntwood SciTech has appointed Kath Mackay to a newly created role – director of life sciences. Mackay first joined Bruntwood SciTech in 2019 from the executive board of Innovate UK and has continued to be an active member in the sector, including as a non-executive director of the Northern Health Science Alliance, Infex Therapeutics, UKRI’s National Biofilms Innovation Centre and Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership. She will also continue in her role as managing director of Alderley Park. As director of life sciences, Mackay will play a key role in Bruntwood’s life sciences vision and strategy, supporting its expansion across the UK while championing innovation and investment in high value sector research and development.

Cambridge-based clinical analytics company Qureight has appointed Caroline Austin as its first non-executive director. Austin is vice president and head of business development transactions at AstraZeneca (AZ), having worked at the pharma company for 20 years. Prior to taking on the vice president role at AZ, she served as executive transaction director and head of precision medicines genomics business development. She has held a variety of strategic partnering and business development positions at the pharma company since joining the company – Austin is also a scientist with a respiratory background, Qureight said in a statement.

Sanofi UK has appointed Jessamy Baird as its new managing director. Prior to taking on the managing director role, Bard was the pharma company’s general manager for its UK and Irish General Medicines business, a post she will maintain and has held since May 2020. She first joined Sanofi in 2015 as its head of market access for the UK and Ireland. Before Sanofi, she worked at Eli Lilly for 14 years, with her final role focused on driving market access strategies across 30 countries in Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan. In addition to her business experience, Baird has also held non-executive and board-level positions in the NHS over the past ten years.

Dublin-headquartered late-stage clinical biopharma company SynOx Therapeutics has announced the appointments of Ray Barlow as chief executive officer and Ton Logtenberg as non-executive chairman. Barlow joins SynOx from Kiadis Pharma, where he was chief business officer up to the successful conclusion of its sale to Sanofi in April 2021. He has over 20 years of experience in the biopharma industry gained through leadership positions in global pharma companies including AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Amgen. Logtenberg has over 25 years’ experience in the biopharma industry, including as co-founder and chief scientific officer of Crucell and founder, president and CEO of Merus.

Dennis Langer and Ken Herrmann have joined London-headquartered clinical-stage pharma company Theragnostics’ board as
non-executive directors. Langer has served as a director of both public and private biotech, pharma and diagnostic companies and has an extensive pharma company background. Previously, he held the role of senior vice president, research and development GlaxoSmithKline and is currently a director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Myriad Genetics and Brooklyn ImmunoTherapeutics. Herrmann is currently chair of the department of Nuclear Medicine at Essen University Hospital.

Appointments

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