Caldan Therapeutics, a subsidiary of the Universities of Glasgow and Southern Denmark, has made four new appointments to its senior management team.
Dr Frank Armstrong (pictured) has been appointed as the pharmaceutical company’s non-executive chairman, while Dr Gerry Thomas takes on the role of chief operating officer.
Dr Armstrong brings extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry to Caldan Therapeutics, and currently also serves as non-executive chairman of Summit plc and RedX Pharma.
Prior to this, he led Merck’s medical science and innovation division, served as head of worldwide product development at Bayer, and has been chief executive officer of Fulcrum Pharma.
Dr Thomas brings 22 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology experience to his new role.
He has held a number of scientific and general management roles in research and development at companies including Boots, BASF and OSI Prosidion.
Also joining Caldan Therapeutics are Dr Philip Boyd and Dr Stephen Connolly, who become chief financial officer and vice president of drug discovery, respectively.
Dr Boyd currently serves as chief financial officer at private life sciences companies Oxford BioDynamics and Enterprise Therapeutics, and was interim-chief financial officer for Tiziana Pharmaceuticals between 2014 and 2015.
Finally, Dr Connolly moves to Caldan Therapeutics after 25 years at AstraZeneca, where he led internal and external CRO project teams delivering candidate drugs.
Most recently, Dr Connolly served as scientific leader with Almirall, based in Barcelona, Spain.
Commenting on the four appointments, Caldan Therapeutics partner Dr Liz Roper said: “We are delighted to have Frank, Gerry, Phil and Steve as part of Caldan Therapeutics.
“Building the board and management with experience and talented executives is crucial to building on the science of Professors Milligan and Ulven to deliver new drugs for metabolic diseases.”