GAITHERSBURG, Md., Nov. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MedImmune, Inc. announced today that it has promoted several senior executives, including Bernardus N.M. Machielse, Drs. to executive vice president, operations; Frank J. Malinoski, M.D., Ph.D. to senior vice president, medical affairs; Christine A. Dingivan, M.D., to senior vice president, clinical development and operations; John C. Lewis, to vice president, global engineering capital projects; and Herren Wu, Ph.D., to vice president, antibody discovery and protein engineering. In addition, Alan S. Taggart has joined the company in the newly created role of vice president, government project management.
"We continue to build an extraordinarily talented team of senior leaders at MedImmune who are focused on taking us to the next level in a way that is in line with our core values of integrity, collaboration, hard work and entrepreneurialism," said David M. Mott, chief executive officer and president. "The promotion of Ben Machielse reflects his many contributions to MedImmune over the years. Specifically, as a leader, Ben has instilled a spirit of teamwork across departments and functions, and in so doing, has created a common vision of operational excellence throughout his organization. Likewise, the promotions of Christine Dingivan, Frank Malinoski, John Lewis and Herren Wu reflect their growth and increasing contributions to our business. Additionally, Alan Taggart brings a great deal of project management experience that will help us further establish our relationships with the government, particularly as it pertains to our influenza franchise. We are fortunate to have each of these outstanding professionals on our leadership team."
Management Promotions
As executive vice president, operations, Drs. Bernardus N.M. Machielse adds responsibility for the company's engineering and facilities activities to his role overseeing manufacturing, supply chain and quality. Drs. Machielse was promoted to senior vice president, operations in January 2005 when he assumed responsibility for all of manufacturing and supply chain operations. Drs. Machielse joined MedImmune as vice president, quality, in 1999 and was appointed senior vice president, quality, in September 2003. Prior to joining MedImmune, Drs. Machielse was vice president, quality control and quality assurance for Xoma Corporation. He also spent several years in various manufacturing and quality positions at Centocor BV of the Netherlands. Drs. Machielse holds a bachelor of science degree in medical biology and a master of science degree in biochemistry from the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Dr. Christine Dingivan, senior vice president, clinical development and operations, has assumed responsibility for all aspects of MedImmune's core infrastructure for clinical development, including clinical operations and strategic planning. Dr. Dingivan was appointed vice president, head of clinical research and operations in August 2005 where she was responsible for general management, strategic development and implementation of MedImmune's global clinical research programs across all therapeutic areas -- infectious disease, cancer and inflammatory disease. Prior to this position, she served as vice president, strategic operations, clinical development. Since forming the strategic operations group in 2002, Dr. Dingivan has developed this department as the core operational and planning function for MedImmune's clinical development department, with consolidation of global clinical operations, training, medical writing, investigational drug management, clinical trial contracts, finances and business management. Prior to her role in strategic operations, Dr. Dingivan led the anti-T-cell clinical research programs in GvHD, transplant and psoriasis. She joined the company in 1996 as director, medical sciences in the medical affairs department. Dr. Dingivan received her bachelor's degree in biomedical and chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and her medical degree from Dartmouth Medical School. She received her training in general surgery with a focus in transplant surgery at Northwestern University in Chicago.
In his new role as senior vice president, medical and scientific affairs, Dr. Frank Malinoski will oversee marketed products and public policy in the therapeutic areas of cancer, infectious disease and vaccines. Dr. Malinoski joined MedImmune as vice president, infectious disease, medical affairs in December 2005. In this position, he led MedImmune's infectious disease and vaccines group within medical affairs, and was charged with providing medical support for MedImmune's licensed products to health care providers and consumers. Dr. Malinoski's responsibilities included overseeing the development and implementation of late-stage clinical programs and educational materials. Prior to joining MedImmune, Dr. Malinoski was president of TD Consultancy, a consulting practice advising industry and government clients on vaccine development issues. Previously, he worked at Oxxon Therapeutics, Inc. as chief medical officer and executive vice president of development, and at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, where he held positions of increasing responsibility including: vice president, global business development; vice president, medical affairs; and assistant vice president, clinical affairs. Dr. Malinoski earned his doctorate in microbiology from Rutgers University and his medical degree from Albany Medical College. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
John Lewis, vice president, global engineering capital projects, is responsible for all large-scale capital engineering projects, including the major expansion at the company's Frederick Manufacturing Center (FMC) in Frederick, Maryland. Mr. Lewis joined MedImmune in August 1999 as manager, project engineering. In this role, he was responsible for several capital projects, including implementing the company's proprietary enhanced yield process at FMC in 2001, which expanded the center's production capacity of Synagis(R) (palivizumab) from approximately 20 percent to 80 percent of worldwide supply. Prior to joining MedImmune, Mr. Lewis served as a project manager in the advanced technologies division of Black & Veatch. He holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from South Dakota State University.
As vice president, antibody discovery and protein engineering, Herren Wu is responsible for antibody discovery, antibody/protein engineering, production cell line generation, structural biology, and protein mimetics. He is actively involved in developing MedImmune's clinical- and preclinical-stage product candidates, and also participates in target discovery and validation for early research projects. Prior to joining MedImmune, Herren served as head of the Molecular Biology Department at Tanox, Inc. and as an associate director of antibody engineering and discovery at Applied Molecular Evolution, now a subsidiary of Eli Lilly & Co. Herren received his bachelor of science degree from the National Taiwan University and his Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
New Appointment
Alan Taggart joined MedImmune as vice president, government project management in September 2006. In this role, he is responsible for coordinating and managing MedImmune's government projects, including the recently awarded $170 million Health and Human Services cell culture contract. He is also responsible for identifying and capitalizing on additional government contracting opportunities. Previously, Mr. Taggart was a management consultant at Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath where he led several significant cross- functional business process change efforts to decrease product development cycle time and improve operational efficiencies. Prior to that, he spent a few years at Bausch and Lomb as a manufacturing and project manager. Mr. Taggart began his career as an engineer at McDonnell Douglas. Mr. Taggart holds a master's degree in management of technology from the University of Miami and received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Florida Institute of Technology.
About MedImmune, Inc.
MedImmune strives to provide better medicines to patients, new medical options for physicians, rewarding careers to employees, and increased value to shareholders. Dedicated to advancing science and medicine to help people live better lives, the company is focused on the areas of infectious diseases, cancer and inflammatory diseases. With more than 2,500 employees worldwide, MedImmune is headquartered in Maryland. For more information, visit the company's website at http://www.medimmune.com/.
This announcement contains, in addition to historical information, certain "forward-looking statements" regarding MedImmune's long-term, strategic objectives. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and involve inherent risks and uncertainties, including factors that could delay, divert or change current expectations and could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from current expectations. In addition to risks and uncertainties discussed in MedImmune's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, no assurance exists that development efforts for the company's pipeline programs will succeed, that these programs will receive required regulatory approval or that, even if regulatory approval is received, products resulting from these programs will be commercially successful. MedImmune undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise except as may be required by applicable law or regulation.
