Novoheart, a global stem cell biotechnology company has appointed Dr Bernard Fermini, as Chief Research and Development Officer.
Dr Fermini has been an expert in cardiac safety pharmacology for more than two decades. Having received a PhD in Biophysics from the University of Sherbrooke (Canada), he joined the Montreal Heart Institute where he led a research team focusing on electrophysiology of the atrial chambers of the heart.
He moved to Merck before joining Pfizer for what became a 17-year tenure. At Pfizer, he held positions of increasing responsibilities including co-chair of the Global Safety Pharmacology Department. He began collaborating with the Novoheart team while at Pfizer and will be bringing his substantial expertise in safety pharmacology to complement Novoheart’s scientific team’s strengths in stem cell and tissue engineering.
Since 2013, Dr Fermini has been the co-chairman of the Ion Channel Working Group of the Comprehensive in vitro Proarrhythmia Assay (CiPA) initiative headed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As co-chairman, he oversees the research into identifying next-generation screening methods for effective detection of drug-induced cardiac arrhythmias before clinical trials.
Dr Fermini is also a board member on the CiPA Steering Committee and committee member of the Safety Pharmacology Society, as well as an active member of Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) Cardiac Safety Committee and the Society of Toxicology.
As a key opinion leader, Dr Fermini will lead Novoheart’s industrial expansion in drug discovery and development, leveraging his extensive experience and networks in the pharma industry.
“Human stem cell-derived cardiac assays are the future for drug screening, as witnessed by the rapid developments in this area and the interest shown by pharma as well as regulatory agencies such as the FDA,” said Dr Fermini.
“With Novoheart’s impressive bioengineered heart tissue technologies, I see immense potential in revolutionizing preclinical testing; I look forward to being a part of the Novoheart team to campaign for an industry-wide adoption of these next-generation, cutting-edge assays.”
“We are very excited by the appointment of Bernard, with whom we have had a wonderful collaboration at Pfizer,” said Dr Ronald Li, co-founder and CEO of Novoheart.
“With his well-recognized stature in the safety pharmacology community, the addition of Dr Fermini to our team further validates our revolutionary technology to prospective clients who are seeking to implement it into their drug discovery and screening processes, and his endorsement will send out a powerful message to the industry.”
