Creabilis, a European biotechnology company specialising in the development of treatments for dermatology, inflammation and pain, has appointed Dr Simon Russell as chief business officer.
Dr Russell joins Creabilis from Novartis Pharma, where he held a number of global strategic marketing roles, most recently head of global marketing for Ilaris (canakinumab). Prior to this he was head of strategic marketing, biologics, where he was responsible for the introduction of a range of novel methods and commercial strategies across the Novartis biologics portfolio.
Dr Russell joined Novartis from AstraZeneca where, as global brand strategy director, biologics, he led the team responsible for strategic commercial input to the biologics portfolio in partnership with Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) and MedImmune and played a key role in the CAT acquisition.
He began his pharmaceutical industry career as a medicinal chemist at ICI Pharmaceuticals and progressed through a number of product, clinical development, marketing and business development roles with Zeneca and AstraZeneca.