AusBiotech announces new chairman and directors

AusBiotech has announced that a new chairman and three new directors were appointed to its board at the Annual General Meeting on the Gold Coast. CEO of BioDiem and existing AusBiotech director Julie Phillips was appointed Chairman, taking the mantle from long-serving chairman Dr Deborah Rathjen, and the board welcomed Serina Cucuzza, Barry Thomas and Serg Duchini as directors.

Phillips has been a passionate and vocal advocate for the biotechnology sector and the opportunity it poses for Australia. She has been a director of AusBiotech since October 2013 and she is currently an industry representative on the federal government’s Clinical Trials Advisory Committee.

Following a stint as a clinical pharmacist in major Sydney teaching hospitals, Phillips moved to big pharma and spent more than 15 years working in regulatory affairs, clinical trials and pharmacoeconomics, where she was involved in the industry’s input into Australia’s ‘world-first’ cost-effectiveness guidelines to support pricing applications to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

She then moved her focus to Australian start-ups, gaining experience over the past decade as a director and CEO of many Australian life sciences companies, including ASX-listed companies.

Phillips said: “I am very pleased to have been appointed as the chairman of the AusBiotech board and look forward to continuing to work on behalf of the industry in the new role to ensure that the Australian biotech industry is duly recognised and supported for its valuable contribution to our economy and our lives.”

New director Serina Cucuzza is the Manager for Commercial Development and Industry Engagement at the Burnet Institute. In this role she is involved in the commercialisation of novel technologies developed from the institute’s research. This includes managing the institute’s IP portfolio; sourcing funding (over $6 million to date); negotiating deals; and managing spin-out companies.

Cucuzza is also involved in projects of strategic importance to the institute including biotechnology-related activities in China and is a director of Access Point of Care, a multinational initiative that applies the institute’s capabilities in novel point-of-care diagnostics in resource-constrained settings.

Cucuzza currently chairs the Burnet’s IP and Commercialisation Working Group and is secretary of the board’s IP and Commercialisation sub-committee. She also sits on the Investment Review Committee of the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund, the Molecules to Medicines Steering Committee and the AusMedtech Victorian Branch Committee. She is the Company Secretary and Director of HepSeeVax and HepGenics and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Newly appointed director Barry Thomas is Cook Medical’s Vice President, Director, Asia Pacific and Managing Director of Cook Australia. He has more than two decades of international leadership and expertise in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

Thomas’s current position sees him working to expand the opportunities for people in Asia to access Cook’s highly advanced and minimally invasive devices. Under his leadership Cook Medical products have gained rapid acceptance throughout Asia, including first-to-market status in Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea with an endovascular graft for abdominal aortic aneurysms.

Prior to joining Cook Medical, Thomas was the regional business director at Johnson & Johnson Medical. He is a director of Research Australia and sits on the Queensland India Council. He is a recipient of the Australian Export Heroes (2012) award for excellence as an Australian exporter and was last year named Health and Pharmaceutical Executive of the Year.

New director Serg Duchini is partner and Tax COO at Deloitte Tax Services and is also a Deloitte board member. In his role as National Leader of the Deloitte R&D and Government Incentive Practice, he has already worked collaboratively and constructively with AusBiotech in engaging with the federal government in the design and development of the current R&D Tax Incentive and the proposed Australian Innovation & Manufacturing (AIM) Incentive.

Thomas is passionate about the success of the Australian biotech industry and has been actively involved in advising and working with many of its participants over many years. He has a deep understanding of the commercial and technical issues many of the industry members face, as well a history of engaging with government in the development of industry policy. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a Chartered Taxation Advisor, Taxation Institute of Australia.

The AusBiotech AGM also marked the departure from the board of Chairman of six years Dr Deborah Rathjen, as well as directors Dr Greg Roger, who served the board for eight years; and Peter Turvey, who served for three years. The board extends its sincere thanks to the departing directors for their valuable contribution.

In particular the board thanks Rathjen, who steered AusBiotech through its most rapid change period. Her leadership has been essential to securing the changes which added strength to the organisation.

The new board composition is:

• Julie Phillips
• Dr Anna Lavelle
• Michelle Burke
• Lawrence Gozlan
• Dr Andrea Douglas
• Serina Cucuzza
• Barry Thomas
• Serg Duchini