Moderna, Rentschler Biopharma and ViroCell Biologics are among the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
Moderna, Rentschler Biopharma and ViroCell Biologics are among the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
CDMO ViroCell Biologics has appointed Nick Maishman as Chief Operating Officer.
ViroCell focuses exclusively on the design and GMP manufacture of viral vectors and gene modified cells for clinical trials: aiming to be the global viral vector supplier of choice for the translational development phase of novel cell and gene therapies.
Maishman brings over 30 years of commercial manufacturing, operations and quality management, and leadership experience. He has served as Site Head, General Manager, VP, and COO roles within pharmaceutical, biotech, vaccine and CDMO companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Valneva, Alexion and Recipharm respectively.
Maishman has worked across the globe including in the UK, Ireland, France, Greece, Austria, and USA. He also has significant experience leading the construction and start-up of new manufacturing sites, securing regulatory approval for CT and commercial GMP manufacturing, including among others for complex biologics such as monoclonal antibodies and vaccines.
His regulatory experience includes new product submissions to FDA and EMA and hosting site inspections from FDA, MHRA, European and International regulatory authorities.
Maishman was a key member of the start-up site leadership team at Pfizer, Grange Castle, a significant investment in vaccine and antibody manufacturing in Ireland. He also led the construction and start-up of the Alexion site in Dublin that manufactures products for ultra-rare diseases. He was Vice Principle of manufacturing for the vaccine company Valenva, where he also led the construction of a new facility for their Covid-19 vaccine.
Prior to joining ViroCell Biologics, he was Interim Chief Scientific and Operations Officer for Alliance Pharmaceuticals, a consumer health business with international operations. He has a BSc from Imperial College, London, and an MBA from the University of Warwick Business School.
The appointment of Maishman as COO comes shortly after the onboarding of Susan B. Nichols as Chief Business Officer in September.
CDMO Rentschler Biopharma has appointed Christiane Bardroff as Chief Operating Officer (COO), effective December 1, 2022.
Bardroff will head clinical and commercial manufacturing, engineering and technology operations, as well as production automation.
With more than 15 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, mainly in large corporations, with a focus on operations and automation, including overall responsibility for the construction of new biotechnology plants, she brings extensive knowledge to her position.
Bardroff joined Rentschler Biopharma as SVP Client Program Management in February 2022 and, since May 2022, has also been SVP Clinical and Commercial Manufacturing at the Laupheim site. Previously, she was responsible for the construction of Teva Biotech’s large-scale biotechnology production facility in Ulm, Germany. In this role, she led the site leadership team and was part of Teva Biotech’s global leadership team as well.
During her many years at Roche, she gained strong experience in the production of various biotechnology products, as well as in automation, IT and project management.
Bardroff studied biotechnology and chemical engineering at Emden University of Applied Sciences, Germany and Zhejiang University of Science and Technology in Hangzhou, China.
Rentschler has sites in Laupheim, Germany; Milford, US; and Stevenage, UK.
Moderna has appointed David Jiménez as General Manager, US, effective November 21, 2022.
Jiménez is now responsible for commercial efforts in the US, reporting to Arpa Garay, Moderna's Chief Commercial Officer.
Prior to Moderna, Jiménez spent two decades at Johnson & Johnson in a variety of leadership roles in the Medical Devices, Consumer Health and Pharmaceutical sectors, across four continents. In his most recent role, Mr. Jiménez served as President for Janssen Immunology, part of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, leading the unit's $10+ bn US Immunology franchise. He also previously led Janssen's Pulmonary Hypertension US organization, for in-market brands, including two which achieved blockbuster status under his leadership.
Jiménez is a pharmacist, with a Doctorate in Pharmacy from the University of Alcala and a Master of Business Administration from the Instituto de Empresa, both in Madrid. He also recently completed the Advance Management Program at Harvard Business School in Boston.
Patrys, an Australian therapeutic antibody development company, has announced the appointment of Dr. Charmaine Gittleson as the Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Dr. Gittleson is the former Chief Medical Officer of CSL Limited with more than 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical development in the USA and Australia. Dr. Gittleson’s expertise spans many aspects of the pharmaceutical industry, from drug development and clinical research through to strategic planning and executive management. She has been involved in drug development programs across a wide range of different therapeutic areas, and has successfully worked with regulators in key markets such as the US, EU, Asia Pacific, Japan and South America.
Dr. Gittleson joins Patrys as the company completes the last remaining stages of preclinical development for its first-in-class anti-cancer antibody PAT-DX1, which is scheduled to commence first in human studies in the second half of 2023. In parallel, Patrys is in the process of establishing a commercial-scale production process for its second deoxymab, PAT‑DX3, which is a full‑sized IgG antibody capable of delivering therapeutic payloads both across the blood brain barrier, and into the nucleus.
Neuraptive Therapeutics, a Philadelphia biotech dedicated to developing novel therapeutics and medical products for patients with nerve injuries, has announced the appointment of industry R&D pioneer Robert (Bob) R. Ruffolo, Jr., Ph.D. to the company’s Board of Directors.
Dr. Ruffolo has over 40 years of research and development experience and is currently the Chairman of Aragen Biosciences, Inc. and Managing Director of Ruffolo Consulting, LLC, a consulting company for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Dr. Ruffolo is the retired President of Research and Development of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and Corporate Senior Vice President of the Wyeth Corporation (now Pfizer). He managed an R&D organization of 9,000 scientists with an annual budget in excess of $5bn.
Prior to Wyeth, Dr. Ruffolo held executive roles at SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (now GlaxoSmithKline) and Lilly Research Laboratories. He earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and his B.S. in Pharmacy from The Ohio State University.
Optibrium, a developer of software and AI solutions for drug discovery, has announced the appointment of Ian Smith as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), the latest in a number of senior-level hires for the company.
With over 25 years of biopharma experience, Smith will oversee the development of the company’s technology portfolio and cloud services and guide the team’s growth to support the continued expansion of the company’s global customer base. This latest hire marks a key milestone for Optibrium as it enters the next phase of commercial growth as a provider of innovative computational and AI drug discovery technologies.
As CTO, Smith will lead the Software Engineering, DevOps and Quality Assurance teams, driving the scale-up of the Company’s infrastructure and managing the expanding portfolio of products and development projects.
Smith joins Optibrium having previously served as Head of Technology and Delivery for an insurance technology start-up, Hx—part of the Howden Group—where he developed innovative data, analytics and digital application-focused strategies through cloud platform delivery, as well as defining a target operating model to implement the Group’s data transformation and growth objectives.
Prior to this, he worked at Merck, Sharp and Dohme (MSD), holding positions including Director of Research and Development Analytics, Director of IT Productivity and Director of Scientific Modelling & Real-World Data.
During his tenure as Director R&D Analytics, Smith led a team to define, develop and execute an 18-month strategy to build Merck’s next-generation machine learning and AI-driven analytics platform and data science capabilities to mature research and develop scientific insights.
