Neurocrine, Mersana Therapeutics, ISPE and Nastech - People on the move
people on the move in the world of pharmaceutical manufacturing.
US biopharmaceutical firm Neurocrine this week announced that its chief operating officer, Kevin Gorman, has been appointed president and CEO of the company. Gorman replaces Gary Lyons, who will step down as president and CEO but will remain on the board of directors. Gorman has been COO at the firm for just under 18 months, having previously served as executive vice president and chief business officer of Neurocrine Biosciences. Prior to Neurocrine, Gorman held positions at Avalon Medical Partners, where he was responsible for the early stage founding of Neurocrine and other biotech firms including Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Metra Biosystems and Ariad Pharmaceuticals. Cancer therapeutics specialist Mersana today announced the appointment of John van Duzer as vice president of manufacturing and pharmaceutical sciences at the firm. Van Duzer joins the company from his previous position as vice president of manufacturing at ActivBiotics, with earlier roles at Inotek, Ciba-Geigy and Novartis. The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) recently announced that ex-Pfizer employee John Berridge has been appointed as the organisation's European Regulatory Affairs Advisor. Berridge will take up the post as of 1 February, 2008, in which he will assist ISPE in its interactions with European regulatory authorities and contribute to its new Product Quality Lifecycle Implementation initiative. Berridge retired from Pfizer's global R&D site in Sandwich, England, in January 2006 as European vice president of pharmaceutical services. He had spent over three decades with the company, working up from his starting position as an analytical chemist. Drug delivery specialist Nastech has a new interim CFO, with Bruce York taking over as company secretary and interim finance boss following the resignation of Philip Ranker at the start of January. York has been senior director of finance, chief accounting officer and assistant secretary at Nastech since 2005, and is also CFO and secretary of MDRNA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Nastech. The company has initiated a search for Ranker's permanent replacement, and York will eventually move over to MDRNA to act as CFO full time. Prior to joining Nastech, York held a series of financial positions at firms including Cellular technical Services, Cell therapeutics and Pysio Control International (now Medtronic Physio-Control).
