Promethera Biosciences, a Belgian biotechnology company developing stem cell therapies, has made two senior appointments.
Dr Jürgen Beck has been appointed as VP Clinical and Medical Affairs and Patrick Stragier as VP Operations.
One of Beck's initial tasks will be to drive forward the clinical development of Promethera’s lead product HepaStem in its current target of inborn errors of liver metabolism. He will also expand the focus of HepaStem to a wider target of acquired liver diseases and will contribute to the expansion of the Promethera product pipeline in large indications.
Stragier will be responsible for developing the Promethera production and operations strategy. In the short term, he will be in charge of the production of HepaStem for ongoing clinical trials. In addition, he will be responsible for the strategy for scaling up production for later stage clinical trials, market needs and commercialisation.
Beck has more than 20 years of experience in medical affairs and clinical research in companies such as Boehringer Ingelheim, Synthélabo, Epigenomics and InterMune. He also spent five years in clinical neurology and psychiatry.
Stragier is a biochemist with more than 25 years of international operational and managerial experience. He has worked for biopharmaceutical companies such as Solvay, DSM-Biologics, Genzyme and Lonza. Since 2009, he has been working as a consultant specialising in cell therapy. He is also the co-founder of MaSTherCell.