Patheon, Kendle, Charles River, Cetero, Parexel and Asterand - People on the move
all had people on the move in the world of pharmaceutical
outsourcing.
Patheon now has confirmed that Riccardo Trecroce will continue to serve as chief executive officer (CEO) for "an indefinite period" of time. Trecroce, who has worked for the troubled contract manufacturer since 2000, temporarily became the new man at the helm in September last year. The former CEO Robert Tedford announced his retirement in May last year and by September Patheon had put on hold its search for a new CEO after numerous problems in its manufacturing operations in Puerto Rico forced it to write down a whopping $254.7m (€199.2m) for goodwill and depreciable assets in Q3 of 2006, creating a net loss of $257.2m compared with net earnings of $3.5m in Q3 of 2005. Since TrecroCe has been in charge in the interim, Patheon has undertaken a number of initiatives, including job cuts, under a Performance Enhancement Programme and the company's first quarter results released in January would indicate that they are already having a positive impact on profitability. The company's pre-tax loss for the quarter ended 31 January 2007 nosedived to $841,000 from $12.6m last year. In other news, Kendle International has announced that Thomas Smith has joined the company as Global Medical Director. Over the last 20 years he has held previous positions at Akros Pharma, Genzyme Corporation and Abbott Laboratories. In this role, he will provide medical and therapeutic expertise to Kendle's Phase I-IV clinical development projects and proposals, with an emphasis on projects in the Central Nervous System (CNS) therapeutic area. CNS is an important focus area for Kendle, with the company's experience including more than 500 CNS projects in 53 countries involving nearly 110,000 patients. "CNS now ranks as the second most researched therapeutic area worldwide in terms of drug development," said Martha Feller senior vice president of Global Clinical Development at Kendle. Kendle's smaller rival Charles River Laboratories has also made a recent appointment, bringing Stephanie Wells into fulfil the newly-created roles of corporate senior vice president of Marketing and chief marketing officer. Wells will be responsible for establishing global marketing strategies and branding initiatives. She has served in similar positions at Johnson & Johnson and Bayer. In other contract research organisation (CRO) movements, Martin Tyson, a former chief information officer (CIO) at Quintiles, has moved to the position of CIO for a much smaller US CRO, Cetero Research. Based in North Carolina, Tyson will oversee IT operations for seven of Cetero's US facilities. Meanwhile, Parexel has added Matthias Grossmann and James Wong its international team - both will hold the post of vice president of Clinical Pharmacology Consulting Services. The two new recruits have extensive experience in pharmacology and will focus on early phase clinical trials across a broad range of therapeutic areas, said the firm. "With more innovation across the bio/pharmaceutical industry driving new compounds into clinical research, clients are increasingly turning to us for a combination of deep scientific knowledge and drug development experience," said Dr Herman Scholtz, corporate vice president and worldwide head of Clinical Pharmacology at Parexel. Finally, after a search for a successor to Randal Charlton as CEO, Asterand has said that Martyn Coombs will now been brought into the role, effective immediately. Charlton, who founded the human tissue supply firm, will still continue on as an advisor to the company.
