Abivax, a French clinical stage biopharmaceutical company based in Paris which specialises in the development of therapeutic vaccines and anti-viral compounds, has appointed Karl Birthistle and Daniel Kenny to its Executive Management team as VP of Global Regulatory Affairs and Chief Commercial Officer & VP of Business Development, respectively.
These two senior appointments further strengthen the Executive Management team led by CEO Professor Hartmut Ehrlich and supported by the Board of Directors and the company’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Birthistle is a physician with broad experience in a number of therapeutic areas, gained as he progressed from a cardiology intern in Dublin to Senior Registrar in Virology at George’s Hospital Medical School in London.
After more than 10 years of treating patients, Birthistle joined the pharmaceutical and bio-tech industry and held positions of increasing responsibility in drug, biologics and vaccines development and medical affairs. He has previously worked at SmithKlineBeecham (Harlow, UK), Bayer (Slough, UK), Pharming (Leiden, Netherlands) and Baxter BioScience (Vienna, Austria), where he was Therapeutic Area Head for Immunology and Critical Care. He went on to become Director of Clinical Development and Safety Assessments for Philip Morris (Neuchatel, Switzerland), and then joined Swissmedic (Bern, Switzerland), the regulatory authority in Switzerland, as Deputy Head, Division Clinical Review.
Kenny is an accomplished biopharmaceutical business leader, with almost 30 years’ experience in the Global Pharmaceutical industry. In his career he has developed and successfully driven business with industry leaders such as Roche (strategic marketing plans for the launch of Tamiflu) and Allergan.
Prior to joining Abivax, Kenny was Global Franchise Head at Baxter Vaccines. Before this role, he was Vice President Baxter Bio-Science, EMEA with responsibility for all marketing and key business programmes in support of regional sales exceeding US$1.9bn.
Kenny also completed more than 10 years in clinical research in the fields of ophthalmology and HIV/AIDS prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry.
