New year, new job: We take a look at some of the experts taking on top roles in the biopharmaceutical industry this month.
New year, new job: We take a look at some of the experts taking on top roles in the biopharmaceutical industry this month.
Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings, a late-stage clinical messenger RNA company, has appointed John Markels, Ph.D.
Dr. Markels will provide strategic oversight to the company’s vaccine franchise and manufacturing processes.
He has over 35 years of leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry at Merck, with a deep background in manufacturing, development, and technology transfer as well as global commercial, policy, and organizational development.
Dr. Markels serves on the Board of Sangamo Therapeutics and chairs and serves on the advisory boards for the University of California, Berkeley College of Chemistry and University of Delaware Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, respectively.
Dr. Markels retired from Merck in March 2022, most recently as President of Global Vaccines, a large and growing business where he led an integrated team dedicated to discovery and development, supply and access, and global marketing and long-term strategy for the vaccines portfolio.
Earlier roles at Merck included President, Latin America, as well as a long career in senior leadership positions in major regions worldwide in manufacturing technology, operations, supply chain and strategy. Dr. Markels has worked in every region of the world and lived in the U.S., Latin America and Europe. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware.
mRNA specialist Moderna has appointed Brad Miller as Chief Information Officer, effective January 3.
Marcello Damiani, who served in this role as Chief Digital Officer, is retiring from the company after seven and a half years.
Miller will serve on Moderna's Executive Committee and report to Chief Executive Officer, Stéphane Bancel. He joins Moderna from Capital One, where he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer.
In this role, Miller led the company's Enterprise Products and Platforms organization, responsible for building and operating critical enterprise services and digital experiences across all lines of business.
In addition to Capital One, Miller has also held technology leadership roles at Mastercard, where he served as Executive Vice President, Operations and Technology, and Citibank, where he was Head of Global Digital and Cloud Technology. Prior to his posts in the financial services industry, Miller spent more than 17 years in various engineering roles between Amazon and Microsoft.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Factors from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, as well as a Master of Science in Human Computer Interaction in Systems Engineering from the University of Nottingham.
J&J’s Board of Directors has elected CEO Joaquin Duato to assume the additional position of Chairman, effective as of this month.
Duato succeeds Alex Gorsky, who will step down from his role as Executive Chairman following a brief transitional period.
Duato has served as Johnson & Johnson’s CEO and a member of the Board of Directors since January 3, 2022: leading a global workforce of 135,000 employees across the divisions of Pharmaceuticals, MedTech and Consumer Health.
Prior to that time, he held senior leadership positions over his 30-plus year career with the company across multiple business sectors, geographics and functions. This included serving as the Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee, where he provided strategic direction for the Pharmaceutical and Consumer Health sectors and oversaw both Information Technology and the Global Supply Chain.
He earned an MBA from ESADE in Barcelona, Spain, and a Master of International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management in Phoenix, Arizona.
Deloitte has appointed Pete Lyons as national sector leader for the life sciences practice in the US.
Lyons succeeds Mike DeLone, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, who is moving to a new position as customer and marketing portfolio leader and US head of Deloitte Digital.
In his new role, Lyons will lead a multi-disciplinary team serving clients across the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical technology, and consumer health care segments through consulting, advisory, audit and tax services.
He will be responsible for the overall strategic direction of Deloitte's life sciences practice as well as its go-to-market strategies and resources. He also will continue to serve as the US life sciences consulting leader.
With 25 years of experience, Lyons' past positions include US consulting client excellence leader where he was responsible for managing the full client portfolio and how to effectively bring Deloitte services to market through its client leaders.
He earned a B.S. in economics and information systems from Boston College and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Laurent Lafferrère has been named as managing director of France BioLead, a new association for the biomedical industry in France.
France BioLead has been set up to bring together industry (CDMOs, CROs, suppliers and pharmaceutical companies), academics and other stakeholders to promote the sector in the country: starting with 15 founding members (including Sanofi, Merck and Thermo Fisher Scientific).
Laurent Lafferrère is a doctor in physical chemistry and process engineering, and also holds an executive master of business administration from HEC Paris.
After four years in public sector research, Lafferrère joined R&D departments with Servier in 2004 followed by Sanofi in 2005. He then occupied various posts of progressing seniority at Sanofi.
In 2010 he joined CMC Biopharmaceuticals at Covance (now Labcorp Drug Development); followed by taking charge of the Seqens Lab R&D Center at Seqens.
In 2020 he took on the role of director of operations and member of the executive committee, in charge of marketing, sales and global operations, at PathoQuest.
Sphere Fluidics, a Cambridge, UK company developing single cell analysis systems underpinned by its patented picodroplet technology, has appointed Richard Hammond as Chief Technical Officer.
In his role as Chief Technical Officer, Richard will be responsible for driving innovation and growing Sphere Fluidics’ product range, including productizing several patented prototypes currently in development. Alongside the expansion of the senior team in May 2021, his appointment is part of the company’s plans to expand its portfolio of single cell analysis and monoclonality assurance systems to facilitate accelerated biotherapeutic discovery and development.
Richard Hammond, MA MEng, joins Sphere Fluidics with over 20 years’ experience in managing the development of cutting-edge commercial products for healthcare and life sciences.
Hammond has held numerous senior positions, including leading product and technology development at Alere, Cambridge Consultants and DNA Electronics. With extensive technical expertise, he has worked in cutting-edge research areas, such as automated cell transfection, CAR-T cell therapy manufacture and digital data storage in DNA. Richard holds MA and MEng degrees in engineering from King’s College, University of Cambridge.
