The Pistoia Alliance, a global not-for-profit organisation that encourages collaboration so that the barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D can be lowered, has appointed Carmen Nitsche as Executive Director Business Development North America, as the organisation looks to expand its global reach.
Nitsche joins the Pistoia Alliance from Accelrys where she was Vice President, Corporate Development. At Accelrys, she managed various life sciences and material sciences M&A activities, and supported existing and prospective partners across the industry spectrum. She also served on the Pistoia Alliance board at this time representing Accelrys.
Prior to this, she worked at Symyx Technologies Elsevier MDL and Nalco Chemical Company.
This latest appointment follows a number of changes at the Pistoia Alliance, which has seen John Wise, formerly Executive Director, become Executive Director, Business Development, Europe, and Richard Holland become Executive Director, Operations.
The Pistoia Alliance draws its membership widely from life science R&D including pharma R&D, commercial information providers, technology companies and publicly-funded research institutes. It creates a virtual, open-innovation community by bringing together the key stakeholders to identify the root causes that lead to life science R&D inefficiencies and then develops best practices, technology implementations and standards to overcome these common obstacles.