This month marked the effective start date for Parexel's new executive VP and CFO Greg Rush, who joins August's People on the Move with several other c-suite hires, including a new CEO at Citoxlab and COO at ProSciento.
Click through the following slides to see what this month's People on the Move hope to achieve in their new roles ➡️
The appointment of Greg Rush as executive vice president and chief financial officer at Parexel follows much speculation on the matter earlier this year.
Rush, who held the same roles at Syneos Health from August 2013 to August 2017, announced his early departure from the company in February and remained on paid leave through April 30, 2018.
“After leading global financial operations within the CRO and service industries for many years, I am thrilled to be joining Parexel, a company that has helped so many life science companies deliver new therapies to patients. In my role as executive vice president and chief financial officer, my goal is to position Parexel for successful growth so we are able to better deliver for our clients and enable them to bring important new treatments to market,” Rush told us.
His appointment became effective August 20, 2018. He is based at Parexel’s corporate headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts.
At Parexel, Rush joins with his former INC Research colleague, Jamie Macdonald, who was named CEO of the company in March.
Parexel also in August named Michele Fournier as senior vice president and chief human resources officer.
Fourier has been with the company since 2014 and was serving as corporate vice president and interim chief human resources officer since January 2018. Previously, Fournier was corporate vice president for compensation, benefits, and HR M&A.
The specialty clinical research organization (CRO) focused on NASH, diabetes, obesity and related metabolic diseases, has named Brian Mooney to the role of chief operating officer (COO). Mooney replaces Dr. Linda Morrow, who has held the role since 2009 and will transition to chief medical officer.
Mooney was previously executive vice president, strategic service provision at Chiltern, a Covance company. In his new role as a member of the executive team, Mooney will lead operations for the company’s CRO and clinical research unit (CRU) divisions. He also will contribute to corporate strategy and senior client relationships.
“Over the last 15 years, ProSciento has cultivated the scientific expertise, scope of services, and operational expertise to be widely recognized as the leading CRO for early phase metabolic drug and device development, in particular, for NASH, diabetes and obesity. I’ve joined ProSciento to shape and accelerate the company’s global expansion of clinical operations and to further optimize efficiencies at its renowned early phase facility,” Mooney told us.
“ProSciento has a strong foothold in North America in terms of reputation and a network of clinical trial sites, and a growing footprint in Europe and Australia. With a keen focus on processes, efficiencies and quality, we look to broaden our access to specialty populations in the metabolic domain by further expanding capabilities in new and established regions, including Asia and Latin America.”
BioAscent Discovery has appointed two directors of chemistry and biosciences to oversee the development and delivery of the company’s drug discovery services.
Among the new hires includes, Angus Morrison, PhD, director of chemistry, who told us, “Having worked in pre-clinical drug discovery for the past 15 years, most recently leading the medicinal chemistry efforts of the European Lead Factory project, I have been very fortunate to work with some outstanding collaborators helping them to translate their innovative drug discovery projects into tangible assets for further investment and progression.”
“In joining BioAscent, I aim to continue this, working in close collaboration with our clients to bring excellence in drug design and with a thorough understanding of the challenges and pitfalls that are frequently encountered along the discovery axis. The outstanding facilities and team here are second to none and will allow us to truly make a difference not only to our clients but ultimately for patient benefit,” Morrison said.
Stuart McElroy, PhD, also joins as director of biosciences.
“Joining BioAscent provides a really exciting opportunity to introduce a unique team of experienced drug discovery specialists to the market place. I genuinely believe that the expertise, experience and infrastructure – including on-site access to a large, diverse IP-free compound library - make us one of the premier drug discovery groups to be found anywhere in the world,” he told us.
“I’m looking forward to growing the business and working with new and existing BioAscent clients to realise their drug development goals throughout the discovery process, from initial development of assays to preclinical candidates.”
The non-clinical research CRO has hired Christophe Berthoux as CEO, Europe.
Berthoux joins the company after serving as the CEO of Synexus in the UK from 2010 to 2017.
“I am excited to join the fantastic team of Citoxlab. I will bring my international experience to support both the organic and external growth of the business globally as well as develop the business further,” he told us.
From 1990 to 2004 Berthoux was managing director and corporate vice president of the research models division at Charles River Laboratories (CRL) Europe.
In 2005, he moved to the US to lead the clinical division of CRL until 2006 before being promoted to executive corporate VP, chief commercial officer for CRL Group (2007-2010).
The health care services provider Ashfield, part of UDG Healthcare, has announced the appointment of Pierre Van Weperen as commercial and patient solutions UK managing director.
Pierre will be part of the Europe and Canada Management Team and will have responsibility for Ashfield’s Commercial and Patient Solutions operations in the UK from September 3, 2018. He has held leadership roles at Novo Nordisk, MSD, and Wyeth.
Pierre told us: “I’m excited to be joining Ashfield at a time where building a strong bridge between the pharmaceutical operating model and our commercial services and patient solutions is so important to our clients and ultimately patients. I’m looking forward to working alongside the fantastic, motivated and skilled people at Ashfield to make this happen.”
Dr. William J. Foster, MD, PhD, FRCSC, has joined Altasciences as principal investigator and consultant on clinical trials. Foster is a practicing retinal physician in Montreal, Canada, a professor of bioengineering, and a member of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering at Temple University in Philadelphia.
“I am pleased to be working closely with the well-versed team of experts at Altasciences to help our clients in their efforts to enhance vision research that will ultimately lead to new therapies and methods for disease detection,” Foster told us.
Foster is a Diplomate of the American Board of Ophthalmology and the American Board of Preventive Medicine in Clinical Informatics, as well as a Fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada. He has his MD from Duke and PhD from Harvard University.
Currently, he is the chair of the CME Committee of the Association for Research in Vision & Ophthalmology, and is a grant reviewer for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Sensory Technologies Study Section.
Concept Life Sciences has expanded its drug discovery and development services support within the US with the hire of Sarah Harris as East Coast business development director
Harris began her career as a scientist at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and has 10 years of business development experience in the biotechnology industry.
She joins Concept from Fidelta, a preclinical discovery services company, where she was national business development director. She also previously held business development roles at Envigo and Affymetrix.
The data-focused CRO has named David Hukin as the company's new senior director of pharmacovigilance (PV) reporting to the chief operating officer Alan Morgan.
Hukin – who has a PhD in cell physiology and biophysics – is based in the UK will take responsibility for growing Quanticate’s existing PV capabilities.
The company last year upgraded its PV database and in-house technology to prepare for the Article 2(3) of Directive 2010/84/EU deadline.
According to the UK-based CRO, the investment anticipates the launch of an improved version of EudraVigilance – the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) system for managing and analyzing information on suspected adverse reactions to medicines.
The cloud-based solutions provider has hired Michael Castle to serve as vice president of sales and marketing. Castle previously worked at Creative Information Technology, Incorporated (CITI), a systems integration software solution provider. He also worked as director of global marketing and strategy for the software and informatics division of Agilent Technologies.
In his new role he will oversee all corporate and product marketing initiatives, as well as partner and channel engagements.
Castle told us that in his new role he hopes to help extend the company’s footprint globally.
“At first, that means understanding and pursuing our addressable market in the US and internationally in the core industries that we serve today – aerospace and defense, life sciences, and healthcare. I’m committed to building a world-class delivery capability driven by customer and partner success to further scale and expand our presence in those industries,” he said.
“Longer term, I want to help create and implement our strategy for how we can really fuel our growth by applying our innovative software solutions to enter adjacent geographic and vertical markets.”
Jonothan Cooil has been named vice president of engineering, facilities and health, safety and environment at the global contract pharmaceutical development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) Almac Group.
He will report to the CEO, Alan Armstrong.
“I am delighted to join Almac where I have assumed overall responsibility and management of all aspects of engineering, estate and property management across the Group. This will include acquisitions and disposals, capital development, utilities management, facilities management and health, safety, environment and sustainability activities throughout all global facilities," Cooil told us.
Cooil joins Almac from the pharmaceutical company HSE where he was head of engineering. He also has held a role as chief engineer and head of process safety at Warwick International. In this position he was responsible for engineering and process safety on a 30 acre Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) chemical site.
Eric Richman has been elected to Chairman of the Board at LabConnect, LLC, a global provider of central laboratory and support services. He succeeds Alain Chetrit, LabConnect cofounder and chairman, who will now serve as Chairman emeritus.
Richman was a member of the founding team at MedImmune and from 2007 through 2015 was president and CEO of PharmAthene, Inc.
He had been a director of LabConnect since 2017 and also serves on the Boards of ADMA Biologics and NovelStem, Inc.
“In this era of highly complex lab testing, one of my key objectives is to be recognized as the go-to service provider for specialized laboratory testing, kit building, sample management, data management and biorepository services,” Richman told us.
The CDMO has appointed Dr. Chi-Chang Wung to the position of director of analytical development, a position in which he will oversee UPM's analytical development group.
Wung previously held senior analytical development and quality control positions at Alkermes, SIGA Technologies, and Asymchem Laboratories.
"I am excited to be a part of this departmental growth at UPM," said Wung. "A strong analytical development group is paramount for a CDMO to be successful. My goals are to lead from a quality by design approach, while mentoring my group to strive for excellence within the analytical organization at UPM."