MMV announces core management team
12th Jan 2001
MMV has appointed Dr Christopher Hentschel to the post of Chief Executive Officer, Dr Robert Ridley to the post of Chief Scientific Officer and Mr Peter Potter-Lesage as its Chief Financial Officer.
Based in Geneva, a city that also hosts two of its founding partners, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations (IFPMA ), MMV’s mission is to bring public and private sector partners together to fund and manage the discovery and development of new medicines for the treatment and prevention of malaria in disease-endemic countries.
Dr Hentschel, formerly Senior VP and Chief Scientific Officer of Centocor , a US based biotechnology company, obtained his PhD in biochemistry from the National Institute for Medical Research in London and later lectured at the Institute for Molecular Biology at the University of Zurich. He brings to MMV experience as a seasoned bio-pharmaceutical R&D executive, as well as experience in managing technology-transfer for the UK’s Medical Research Council.
Dr Ridley, a malaria research specialist involved with MMV since its inception, comes to MMV from the WHO where he was Manager of Drug Discovery Research and Malaria Disease Research Coordinator in a Special Programme for Training and Research in Tropical Diseases (TDR). Dr Ridley brings industrial experience gained as a Vice-Director in the Infectious Disease Drug Discovery department of F. Hoffmann-La Roche . He has authored or co-authored over 70 scientific papers and articles in basic and drug discovery research.
Peter Potter-Lesage has spent the last eleven years in positions of increasing responsibility in the Swiss banking system most recently as U.B.S. SA (Geneva) Director Corporates, Institutions & International Organisations. This role provided considerable exposure to the finances of the "not for profit" sector in Geneva particularly in the areas of treasury, foreign exchange and cash management.
MMV is currently active in building a project pipeline from the current 5 discovery projects to a sustainable research and development portfolio expected to require funding of approximately of 16 USD million by 2002 and 30 USD million by 2005.
According to Dr Hentschel, "a major focus this year will be to build up the many technical, finance and managerial functions inherent to the public – private sector partnership concept which MMV is pioneering"
For Dr Ridley, "the goal of discovering, developing and bringing to market a sustainable supply of new anti-malarial drugs that meet the needs of disease endemic countries represents a challenge which will require the research strengths of our partners in industry and in academia, supported by governments, philanthropic organisations and international institutions."