People Spotlight — March 2023

Catalent, a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), has appointed Sridhar Krishnan to the newly created position of VP of The Catalent Way, where he will lead the company’s operational excellence strategy and spearhead a transformation based on Lean principles, designed to drive sustainability, and encouraging growth. He will also serve on the executive leadership team, reporting directly to Catalent’s president and CEO, Alessandro Maselli. Krishnan returns to Catalent having spent the previous four years in a number of roles within the pharmaceutical industry, most recently as SVP, head of operations, for Jubilant Pharma. He has over 20 years of operational leadership experience within the CDMO space, including as VP of global operations, and subsequently as VP, global procurement & business analytics at Catalent.

Alcami Corporation has appointed Jamie Iudica as chief manufacturing officer. He brings more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including leadership roles in engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain operations. Before joining the CDMO, Iudica was chief manufacturing officer at Istari Oncology. He has served multiple manufacturing and operations leadership roles throughout his career including executive roles at Xellia Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, and Hospira.

Ryan Schroeder

Krystal Biotech, Inc., a biotech company focused on developing and commercializing genetic medicines for patients with rare diseases, has appointed Catherine Mazzacco to its board of directors. In the past, she has held posts as president and CEO of LEO Pharma, and prior to this role, Mazzacco served as SVP of global commercial operations, life sciences division at GE HealthCare, among various other positions.

CRB, a provider of consulting solutions to the biopharma industry, has named President Ryan Schroeder as CEO. Schroeder succeeds CEO and CRB co-founder Jeff Biskup, who will remain on the board of directors and lead the board as executive chairman. The company has also formed CRB Operations, a group uniting the company’s regional operations and technical operations teams into a single structure, which will be led by new COO Sam Kitchell.

SmartSense by Digi, a part of Digi International and a provider of internet of things (IoT) connectivity solutions, appointed Joel Vengco, SVP and chief information and digital officer at Hartford HealthCare, to its healthcare advisory board, which aims to help organizations mitigate operational risk, streamline standard operating procedures, and simplify compliance. He brings more than a decade of healthcare technology experience to the position. Prior to his current role with Hartford HealthCare, he held the same title at Baystate Health from 2012-2022.

Shawn Fitzgibbon has joined BDC Advisors, a healthcare strategy consulting firm, as a managing director. The positions entails leading BDC Advisors' payer-provider consulting practice, while working with clients to develop and implement strategies for effective and innovative healthcare payer contracting. With over 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry, Fitzgibbon brings knowledge and expertise on the rapidly changing payer-provider market, including the development of patient-provider-payer alignment strategies.

Scorpius BioManufacturing, a biologics contract research organization (CRO) and CDMO, appointed Gary Welch as interim president. He has a career spanning more than 30 years in biopharmaceuticals at large manufacturers like AbbVie, and biotech innovators like Agensys and CytomX.

The Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) welcomed two new staff members to its government affairs and communications teams: Kirsten Wing and Elizabeth Baker. Wing joins the association as director for federal government affairs. In this position, she will help advocate for HDA’s priority federal legislative issues, working closely with members, industry coalitions, and other key stakeholders to ensure that the role and value of distribution is well understood by members of Congress and staff. As for Baker, she joins the HDA communications and marketing team as director of communications, a role in which she will help build and extend HDA’s communications platform to help showcase the industry’s value proposition, as well as the association’s advocacy and policy agenda.