Health comms agency emotive hires new cell and gene therapy leader

Healthcare comms agency emotive has set up a new business unit dedicated to advanced therapies, to be led by Dr Germano Ferrari.

An expert in cell and gene therapies, Dr Ferrari joins emotive following 20 years in research as well as holding medical affairs and commercial roles in biopharma and diagnostics.

Dr Germano Ferrari

His most recent role was as a programme manager at the UK’s Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult where he helped develop commercialisation pathways for several pre-clinical advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs).

The agency says a large proportion of its work is now in the field of rare and ultra-rare disorders, where advanced therapies will play an important part in treatment protocols.

The group has ongoing work in preparing for the global launch of one of the earliest gene therapies. It is also charged with developing HCP engagement on gene silencing technology and educating on cell therapies such as CAR-T, and the new business unit will provide core expertise in this emerging and highly specialised field.

A new office planned for Cambridge, Massachusetts later this year, will provide further support to clients for both EU and US launches.

Chris Edmonds

Founder and chief executive of emotive Chris Edmonds said: “At a recent conference in the US, I heard from the first physician to treat a patient with a licensed product in a rare and previously untreatable eye disease. He explained the impact on the life of the patient and went on to describe how he sees gene therapy as a historic moment in medicine. I could not agree more. By putting the experience we already have into a dedicated unit with Germano at the helm, we have an opportunity to be at the forefront of this incredible moment and play an important role supporting the biopharm companies pioneering in this field.”

Dr Ferrari said “We have now reached a turning point where the awareness of what is a cell or gene therapy is growing and where the reliable and correct sharing of information is of pivotal importance for the companies, the central authorities, and also for medical specialists, scientists and patients."

He says this will be needed to ensure advanced therapies realise their full potential in healthcare.

“I am honoured to work with theEmotive team in this challenging and rewarding environment to help biopharmaceutical companies involved in this innovative area bring life-changing therapies to the patients,”he adds.

Joining Germano in the new unit will be Dr Silvana Bardelli who is promoted to Advanced Therapies Expert. Silvana holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the Human Molecular Genetics Unit at the University of Insurbia in Italy.

She completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School and has spent over eight years working across a broad variety of research, regulatory, quality assurance and medical writing roles at scientific institutions across the globe, including Singapore, Switzerland, London, Belgium, theUS and Italy.