People spotlight — October 2021

Recro Pharma, Inc., a contract development and manufacturing organization that works with oral solid dose drug product developers, has appointed Tim Bourque as vice president and head of operations for Recro San Diego. In his new role, he will support the continued integration of Recro and IriSys, while also leading the Recro San Diego site to drive growth.

OptimizeRx Corp., a digital health company that provides communications support for life sciences organizations, physicians and patients, announced the appointment of Edward Stelmakh as CFO and COO, which took effect Oct. 11. He succeeds Doug Baker, who will continue on as executive vice president of finance and accounting.

Edward Stelmakh. Credit: OptimizeRx

Johnson & Johnson announced that Paul Stoffels, MD, currently the company’s vice chairman of the executive committee and chief scientific officer of J&J, will retire, effective Dec. 31, 2021. In his role, Stoffels led the company's research and product pipeline teams.

PepGen, Inc., a biotech company that works to advance oligonucleotide therapies for neuromuscular and neurologic diseases, has name Noel Donnelly as CFO. Donnelly is an experienced finance and R&D executive with expertise in financial planning and analysis, strategy, and portfolio management, and has experience in both the pharma and financial services sectors.

Capital Rx, a health technology company, has hired Ari Fischel as CFO. Fischel brings more than two decades of financial management and strategic planning experience, and was most recently working with Oscar Health in the insurance industry. As CFO, he will be responsible for driving financial projections and forecasting, managing capital allocation, overseeing profit and loss performance, and leading and growing Capital Rx's finance and accounting teams.

Editas Medicine, Inc., a genome editing company, has appointed Bernadette Connaughton to its board of directors. Connaughton has more than 30 years of global strategic, commercial and biopharma industry experience. She most recently served as president at Intercontinental, developing commercialization strategies for several oncology, virology and immunology products.

Dr. Louise Duffy. Credit: Abzena

Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corporation, a medical technology company, has appointed Jan D. De Witte as its next president and CEO. De Witte succeeds Peter J. Arduini, who previously announced he will step down as CEO to accept a role at GE Healthcare. De Witte will join Integra prior to the end of the year, at which time he will also be appointed to Integra’s board of directors.

Abzena, a partner research organization for outsourced solutions integrating gene to commercial for large molecules and bioconjugates, has promoted Louise Duffy, PhD, to CTO. Duffy provides support to the company in good manufacturing practice infrastructure, technology design and operational manufacturing support.

The Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), a public-private partnership co-founded by Duke University and FDA, has named Sally Okun as its new executive director. In her new role, Okun will work closely with the executive committee, steering committee, and staff to develop and implement strategies to accomplish CTTI’s mission; she will also orchestrate efforts to effectively engage all interested stakeholders to improve the conduct of clinical trials.

PHASTAR, a biometrics contract research organization (CRO) offering support in data management, data science, statistical consulting and clinical trial reporting services, announced the appointment of Cary Morrill as chief people officer. Morrill brings to PHASTAR over 25 years of experience in human resources across various CROs, executive search and strategy consulting companies.