A round-up of the top senior appointments in the drug discovery sector over the last month.
Renos Savva, Head of Innovation, Discovery Park
Savva’s previous experience includes co-founding Domainex, recognised by the Financial Times in 2018 as the ‘fastest-growing drug discovery contract research organisation in Europe’, and developing and delivering the postgraduate Bio-business programme at Birkbeck University.
JD Mowery, Chief Executive Officer, Marykay Marchigiani, Chief Financial Officer and Sigma Mostafa, Chief Scientific Officer, KBI Biopharma
With a 25-year track record of building organisations, Mowery will lead KBI and Selexis, both JSR Life Sciences companies. Marchigiani is a certified public accountant, previously the Global Chief Financial Officer at Advanced Bioscience Laboratories. Mostafa was previously KBI’s Senior Vice President and Site Head for its largest site, with a 13-year tenure at the company.
Sonia Quaratino, Independent Non-executive Director, Engitix
Dr Quaratino has over 25 years of experience in immunology and oncology research. She is currently Chief Medical Officer at Georgiamune, Chair of the Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board for STipe Therapeutics, and a non-executive director for Circio and Ichnos Sciences.
Dr Monika Ermann, Vice President Drug Discovery, Curve Therapeutics
Ermann joins Curve following Exscientia, where she held the position of Director Chemical Biology, and 20 years at Evotec. The company has also added Prof Julian Downward (Francis Crick Institute) and Prof Steven Benkovic (Penn State University) to its Scientific Advisory Board.
Kenneth Hitchner, Chairman, Board of Directors, Sphere Fluidics
Hitchner has spent much of his 28-year career at Goldman Sachs in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors; a member of the Global Management committee and Chairman and CEO of Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, from 2013 to 2019.
Nick Robbins-Cherry, Chief Financial Officer, Andrew Calam, Vice President of Clinical Operations, and Elizabeth Hardaker, Vice President of Biology, Epsilogen
Robbins-Cherry joins from Ixaka Ltd, a private cell and gene therapy company. Calam was previously an Executive Director of Clinical Development at Syneos Health. Hardaker was most recently a Senior Director at AstraZeneca and previously worked at Evotec and Novartis.
Vad Lazari, VP of Biology and Dr Jonathan Savidge, Independent Chair, NRG Therapeutics
Lazari joins from Charles River and brings two decades of drug discovery experience including at Pfizer and BioFocus. Savidge is currently CEO of Kynos Therapeutics and was previously founding CEO of neuroscience company Syndesi Therapeutics.
