This month’s announcements of appointments, acquisitions, new hires, and other news include Standigm, Astellas Pharma, Trialbee, and other key companies.
This month’s announcements of appointments, acquisitions, new hires, and other news include Standigm, Astellas Pharma, Trialbee, and other key companies.
Patient-centric trial solutions company Trialbee has named three digital healthcare executives to its advisory board:
- Rachel Berman, digital content leader with Dotdash
- Ritesh Patel, digital healthcare evangelist
- John Whyte, WebMD CMO
“Trialbee’s significant momentum comes as the clinical trial space rapidly evolves with technology and data-driven solutions that break down barriers to clinical trial participation,” saidTrialbee CEO Matt Walz. “Our Trialbee Honey platform and use of real-world data solves difficult challenges for sponsors, CROs, and trial sites, but innovation also benefits from the expertise of a group like our advisory board, which represents a range of disciplines within life sciences and the broader healthcare ecosystem.”
Contract research organization Worldwide Clinical Trials has expanded its early-phase, large-molecule services with a new 15,000-square-foot lab at its Austin, Texas Bioanalytical Center of Excellence. The dedicated lab is expected to offer a forecasted sample analysis scale of about 70,000 annually, increasing to about 200,000 in 2024, across pharmacokinetic (PK), anti-drug antibodies (ADA), and biomarkers.
“We are excited to expand our services to meet the rapid increase in large molecule demands and to better support our sponsors’ unique needs – giving them a competitive advantage to face the bioanalytical revolution head-on,” said Mike Mencer, WCT’s executive vice president and general manager for early phase. “Our expanded capacity is vital to the development of large molecule products, such as vaccines, blood products, and gene and cellular therapies for patients.”
Global CDMO WuXi STA has announced the groundbreaking for a new 190-acre pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in Middletown, Delaware. Phase I of the new campus will provide formulation development, clinical and commercial drug product manufacturing services for a variety of oral and injectable dosage forms, as well as packaging, labeling, storage and distribution services for clinical trial materials and commercial drug products.
“The biopharmaceutical industry is part of Delaware’s DNA,” said Delaware Governor John Carney. “Over the next five years, WuXi STA plans to build a state-of-the-art pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in one of Delaware’s fastest-growing communities, bringing with it good jobs and economic growth. This campus is only possible because of Delaware’s world-class, innovative workforce.”
Artificial intelligence drug discovery company Standigm has appointed Carl Foster chief business officer. He will be responsible for expanding strategic partnerships for novel drug target discoveries and first-in-class lead candidate identifications.
"Carl has established a reputation for increasing company value. He has significant experience building and growing biotech companies, like Standigm, through creative deal-making," said Jinhan Kim, CEO of Standigm. "We're confident Carl can help us meet our aggressive goals."
Bioanalytical and CMC testing provider has announced plans to open a bioanalytical lab in Brisbane, Australia. The 20,000-square-foot purpose-built facility supporting preclinical and clinical testing will be fully operational in November 2022.
“With the speed to start Phase I studies, quality of clinical sites and a favorable Australian R&D tax credit, Australia is an optimal market for early phase clinical research,” said Alliance CCO Vito Saccente. “Alliance will not only be able to provide services critical to this market, but also when these compounds move to Phase II, we are well-positioned to transfer methods without losing critical knowledge and can continue to support the progression of clinical development for our clients.”
Global CDMO Rentschler Biopharma has named two industry veterans to leadership positions: Sabine Sydow, chief of staff; and Falk Nuernberger, corporate general counsel.
Frank Mathias, Rentschler Biopharma CEO, said, “With their in-depth knowledge of our industry and their professionalism and sound judgment, we are gaining two very valuable senior team members. “I am very much looking forward to working with Sabine and Falk. Their counsel will be instrumental in guiding and advancing our company’s strategic growth.”
Astellas Pharma US has awarded its sixth annual Changing Cancer Care (C3) Prize to Aimee DeGolyer, founder and CEO of REPROSENT. The $100,000 award is given to innovative, non-treatment solutions intended to improve cancer care for patients, caregivers, and the oncology community.
"In alignment with Astellas' patient-centric approach focused on supporting innovative health solutions beyond medicine through a deep understanding of the patient experience, REPROSENT honors the perspective and needs of patients with an outcomes-based digital app that complements in-person touchpoints," said Anthony Yanni, senior vice president and global head of patient centricity with Astellas. "We are honored to fuel this year's winning idea, which is based on real-world experience and has the potential to meaningfully help people living with cancer."
After losing her father in 2020 to a cancer immunotherapy adverse reaction, DeGolyer founded REPROSENT and developed a mobile app to help cancer patients track their own symptom data, enabling them to have greater control in their treatment. The app aims to reduce clinical team burden, drive deeper understanding of the patient's daily data and improve outcomes.
ArisGlobal is presenting its one-day Breakthrough2022 Conference in Boston on October 3, in advance of the World Drug Safety Congress Americas. The event will share insights from pharmaceutical and biotech companies that are using a range of technology solutions, such as ArisGlobal’s LifeSphere platform, to address challenges in research and development.
The agenda will cover trends in pharmacovigilance and safety, clinical trial management, and regulatory compliance with a focus on data and analytics, automation, and other topics. To date, confirmed speakers include representatives from:
- Johnson & Johnson
- Astellas
- Amgen
- CSL Behring
- Boehringer Ingelheim
Powder and liquid transfer specialist has acquired PuroVaso, a company focused on design, development, and manufacture of single-use containers, handling equipment and accessories for the pharma, biopharma, and life science markets. The move is designed to complement ChargePoint’s portfolio of containment and sterile transfer technology and offer clients a broad range of transfer, storage, and handling products.
“PuroVaso has vast technical expertise in pharmaceutical processing, transfer, handling and storage, with a broad portfolio of products that customers rely on for critical process applications,” said Chris Eccles, CEO of ChargePoint. “With its extensive process knowledge, application engineered solutions and relentless customer focus, PuroVaso offers leading solutions to highly regulated pharma and biopharma landscapes along with several other process critical markets.”
Assistive technology specialist Envison and Aira, a company that offers visual interpreting services, have announced a partnership intended to add live interpreting services to Envision Glasses. The integration of the two technologies is intended to enable clients to readily obtain assistance in real time.
"We all like to have a choice of people to go to when we need assistance from professionally trained agents to family and friends,” said Karthik Mahadevan, CEO and cofounder of Envision. “With the addition of Aira to the Envision Glasses we are delighted to not only be able to offer our customers that choice but also an easier, hands-free Aira experience."
