CROs this month have made significant new hires with WCG adding eight to its scientific leadership team, PPD hiring four, and BioIVT filling its new-created role of CCO.
Also, making the move from Bioclinica, David Kiger has been named the new chief commercial officer at Data Cubed.
Click through the following slides to hear what this month's new hires hope to achieve in their new roles.
CROs this month have made significant new hires with WCG adding eight to its scientific leadership team, PPD hiring four, and BioIVT filling its new-created role of CCO.
Also, making the move from Bioclinica, David Kiger has been named the new chief commercial officer at Data Cubed.
The contract research organization (CRO) has named industry executive John Cargill as its chief commercial officer.
Cargill has held executive roles at several CROs, most recently as vice president at Covance. In this role, he headed global business development for clinical analytics and strategic clinical sourcing.
Cargill told us, “In my new role, I will be responsible for Clinipace’s global business development and internal sales teams. I plan to leverage Clinipace’s team-oriented, personal approach and my experience in the biotech, life science and health care sectors to forge new relationships and strengthen existing ones across the industry.”
Hampton Corley also has joined Clinipace as its new vice president of business development and clinical analytics.
In this role, Corley will focus on growing Clinipace’s clinical analytics services suite and functional service provider (FSP) offerings.
Corley told us, “I look forward to continuing to work with Clinipace’s current and future clients in my new role. My objective is to maximize the value of their clinical research data with customized solutions — supported by our new Clarity Stack technology platform — from within our suite of clinical analytics services and functional service provider (FSP) offerings.”
In response to growing demand for its biospecimens and research services, BioIVT has expanded its global commercial capabilities.
The company has appointed Alan Findlater to the newly-created role of chief commercial officer, a role in which he will be responsible for all of BioIVT’s commercial activities.
“With the rapid growth experienced by BioIVT, I look forward to bringing a unified approach to our commercial strategies,” Findlater told us. “Through cross-functional collaboration across our sales, marketing and client service teams, we will address competitive pressures by delivering a first-in-class customer experience through enhanced client relationships.”
Findlater was chief commercial officer at WIL Research Laboratories for more than five years before it was acquired by Charles River Laboratories in April 2016. He was then appointed as Charles Rivers’ executive director, global business development, safety assessment, discovery, and research models.
He also has held several senior global management positions at Covance Laboratories.
The CRO expanded its regulatory services with the appointment of David Dills to department director.
Dills has more than 28 years of experience in the medical device and pharmaceutical industry.
In his new role as regulatory services department director, Dills told us, “I am delighted to join Cromsource this is an excellent opportunity to make a difference within a CRO that has a proven track record, demonstrated capabilities, strategic goals and future growth plans.”
He added, “Understanding the regulatory challenges that lie ahead and seeing the big picture, from submission and application strategy through product approval and beyond, is motivational as director of regulatory services.
“I also look forward to expanding and launching additional regulatory services within our existing portfolio and certainly liaising and working with our clients and our key stakeholders while capitalizing on our regulatory intelligence capabilities.”
The virtual clinical trial technology company has named Kim Kundert as vice president of operations.
In her new role, Kundert told us she hopes to achieve easier, more convenient access to clinical trials for patients.
“The simple compliance visits that we ask patients to drive into the office for could easier be done remotely via telemedicine. By providing a video platform to communicate with the patient, you have that ability to read the patients face and see if they truly understand what you are saying.
“Issues such as sick children, non-flexible work schedules or vacations don't have to impact patient participation in clinical trials. The ultimate goal is to get better medications to market more quickly.”
Kundert most recently served as the senior vice president of operations at the Synexus.
David Kiger has been named the new chief commercial officer at Data Cubed.
"In this new role, I am excited to focus on an earlier stage of the process and will be able to help craft and tailor what and how we approach our technology and capabilities at Data Cubed based on what I’ve seen in terms of industry needs and gaps," he told us.
Read: To focus on the patient, Data Cubed emphasizes design and the ‘lures’ of gaming technology
"It’s an exciting time to help expand and build our offerings with pharma and CROs – we’re uniquely positioned to help drive the transition to value based care and have tapped into best practices across many areas (academia, gaming, human behavior) to create a first of its kind solution that’s scalable," he said.
He was previously the chief commercial officer of Bioclinica. Prior to that, Kiger headed up services innovation strategy and marketing for Parexel Informatics. He also led the Parexel North American eClinical and Medical Imaging business development.
Kara Dennis has been appointed senior vice president and general manager of life sciences at Clarify Health.
In her role, Dennis will be responsible for spearheading the company’s new business division, leading the development of new offerings. According to the company, the new division will focus on “closing the data gap to improve patient outcomes for emerging therapies and personalized medicine.”
Dennis previously was managing director of mobile health at Medidata Solutions, before which time she spent four years in McKinsey & Co's healthcare practice.
“I believe we can provide life sciences companies with actionable and scalable insights on what patients are experiencing on a day-to-day basis as well as over the course of their care journeys, and that these insights will help improve workflows and operational efficiencies, the patient experience and, ultimately, patient outcomes,” Dennis told us.
Dennis said the company frequently hears from its biopharma clients that they don't understand something critically important about their patient population:
“In some instances, their patients should be taking a biologic but they're not, and it's not clear why. In other instances, even when a patient is prescribed a proven therapy, the disease seems to be poorly controlled and the reasons for this aren't well understood. We hope to pull together complex healthcare data in a way that provides a clear picture of the whole patient journey,” she explained.
“Another reason why I’m thrilled to be at Clarify Health is that I believe we can help the industry advance models that support the development of groundbreaking therapies,” said Dennis, citing the work takin place in immuno-oncology, gene therapies, biologics, rare disease, and other areas.
“In many of these areas, biopharmaceutical companies will need new approaches to articulating therapeutic value and contracting with payers in order to support the ongoing work being done to get these much-needed innovations to patients, and I think that Clarify can play a critical role in supporting these efforts,” she added.
The WIRB-Copernicus Group's (WCG) Clinical Services Division has added eight to its scientific leadership team, expanding the company’s clinical expertise across several areas.
Leslie Citrome, MD, MPH, is an adjunct professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York. Her research has centered on psychopharmacologic approaches to schizophrenia, management of treatment-refractory schizophrenia, and the management of aggressive and violent behavior.
Christoph Correll, MD, is a professor of psychiatry at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, and medical director of the recognition and prevention (RAP) program at the Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York. His research focuses on the identifying, characterizing, and treating adults and youths with severe psychiatric disorders.
Andrew Cutler, MD, is the chief medical officer for Meridien Research and a courtesy assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida.
James Galvin, MD, MPH, is a professor of integrated medical sciences and associate dean for clinical research at the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University. He also is the founding director of the Comprehensive Center for Brain Health and executive director of the Institute for Healthy Aging and Lifespan Studies (I-HeAL).
Scott Hunter, PhD, is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience, in addition to pediatrics, at the University of Chicago. He also is the director of neuropsychology and coordinator of the university’s child psychology training program.
Michael Liebowitz, MD, is a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and founder of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Liebowitz created the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS).
Philip Scheltens, MD, PhD, is a professor of cognitive neurology and director of the Alzheimer Center at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.
Leo Verhagen Metman, MD, PhD, is a professor at Rush Medical College and medical director of the neurosurgery program for movement disorders at Rush University Medical Center.
PPD has added several new hires across multiple therapeutic areas, including neuroscience, oncology, rare diseases, and pediatrics.
“As the drug development process continues to become more complex, our clients are looking to PPD to provide medical and scientific expertise and strategic direction that extend far beyond traditional clinical trial implementation,” said Rob Dow, PPD chief medical officer.
Dow told us the new hires have held senior leadership roles in various capacities in the life sciences industry, providing them with a range of experience that offers “significant strategic value” to clients.
“In their new positions, they will help develop cross-functional integrated product development plans and assist with the design of clinical trials that include relevant indication-specific endpoints and the use of traditional and novel statistical approaches,” he added.
“An important role for our therapeutic area experts is to assist our clients in anticipating and overcoming clinical and regulatory challenges in product development, saving time and enabling the achievement of timely, cost-effective and informed decisions.”
Among the new hires includes Amy Chappell, MD, who worked with Eli Lilly and Company for 25 years before transitioning to a consultant for companies such as Convergence Pharma, Biogen, Advicenne, Flexion, and Lundbeck.
Chappell is board certified in neurology and lifestyle medicine, and has authored or co-authored more than 75 scientific publications and presentations.
Alberto Lledó, MD, PhD, is a board-certified neurologist with additional certification in neuroimmunology.
Lledó has worked with PPD as a consultant and held roles as a neurology consultant and chief medical officer for Canbex Therapeutics. Prior to this Lledó worked at Eli Lilly and Company for 16 years.
Timothy Miller, MD, is a board-certified neuromuscular neurologist joining PPD from Sanofi Genzyme, where he served as medical director, senior medical director, global medical director, and vice president and head of medical affairs for North America rare diseases.
Konstantin Stoitchkov, MD, PhD, joins PPD from Terumo Europe, where he was medical director of oncology and responsible for the department of medical affairs.
He has held role at other CROs and was coordinating physician for three cooperative groups at the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer in Brussels, Belgium.
Worldwide Clinical Trials has added two hires to its US business development team.
Giovanna Chan is now vice president, business development, US – West. Chan joins Worldwide from PRA Health Sciences where she was a senior director in charge of business development activities across a West Coast territory. She has also held business development leadership roles with Chiltern.
In the same role covering the eastern territory, Cara Staley was previously a senior director responsible for business development at PSI-CRO.
Part of UDG Healthcare, Ashfield has appointed Ben Beckley as global commercial director of Ashfield Healthcare Communications.
In this role, Buckley will be responsible for leading the global commercial strategy, developing business plans and ensuring all across the Ashfield Healthcare Communications network.
“This is a company that has been well grounded on the science side of things for decades, but as healthcare changes, and client partners are faced with greater competition, we will need to demonstrate our differentiation not only through science, but through the other areas our client partners measure us,” he told us.
“I’m also looking forward to expanding our presence and collaborations among the top 20 pharma company current relationships; helping them understand who the Ashfield of 2019 is and how extensive our capabilities are. 2019 is going to be a great year of continued growth and the refinement of our full story.”
