Research and business meet on new Cerylid board
Monday, 18 February, 2002
Cerylid Biosciences has appointed a scientific advisory board made up of big players from the biotech and pharmaceutical sectors.
Chairing the board is Dr Tim Harris, president and CEO of San Diego-based drug discovery company Structural GenomiX. Harris has been involved in biotechnology for more than 20 years, both in the UK and the USA. Before he joined Structural GenomiX in 1999, he was the senior vice-president of R&D at Sequana Therapeutics, which later became Axys Pharmaceuticals after a merger. Previously, he was director of biotechnology at Glaxo, and has also had senior roles at Celltech.
Harris has also been appointed to the Cerylid board of directors, representing JBWere's investment in the company. The JBWere Private Equity Fund invested $9.9 million in the company last year.
Dr George Morstyn and Dr Paul Tolstoshev have also joined the board. Morstyn has been a senior executive at Amgen in the USA for the past 10 years and has recently returned to Australia. His responsibilities at Amgen included the development and regulatory approval of all Amgen products. Before he joined Amgen, he was a cancer researcher at the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research and University of Melbourne, and also worked as a physician. In 1990 he was appointed director of medical oncology at the Austin Hospital. He is also a member of the board of directors at Bionomics in Adelaide and retains an advisory role at Amgen.
Dr Tolstoshev was involved with the development of Transgene SA in France in the early 1980s, and later went on to co-found Genetic Therapy Inc in the USA, which was later acquired by Sandoz (now Novartis). He has had senior management roles at Biotechnology Australia and at BresaGen, and has his ownbiotechnology consulting business.
Cerylid CEO Dr Jackie Fairley said the company had sought board members with experience in both research and business. "We have certainly achieved that," she said.
Cerylid's business is based on drug discovery and genomics platforms.
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