Crown Bioscience holds symposium; expands in Asia-Pacific region

The symposium, titled “Precision Medicine: Translating Oncology Drug Discovery into Success in the Clinic,” focused on the implementation of translational technologies across the research and clinical communities to improve the development of drugs before entering clinical trials, to support clinical decisions and to maximize clinical value.

“Our goal is to create an opportunity for leading scientists to share the latest scientific approaches in immuno-oncology and combination therapeutic regimes to help speed the best candidates to clinical development,” said Dr. Jean-Pierre Wery, president of Crown Bioscience, in late January as his company prepared to host the event.

As an end-to-end preclinical to clinical service provider and thought leader in translational oncology, CrownBio noted that it has made a significant investment to improving the knowledge of the scientific community about translational platforms. For the symposium, the company assembled a notable lineup of eight industry experts, including Dr. Gary Middleton, professor of medical oncology at University of Birmingham, and Dr. Thomas Mehrling, managing director of Mundipharma-EDO GmbH. The symposium also featured CrownBio’s Dr. Rajendra Kumari, chief scientific officer, and Dr. Eric Murphy, global scientific director for translational oncology.

In other Crown Bioscience news, the company announced in late 2015 the appointment of two respected industry veterans to its business development team to support its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region.

Dr. Tetsuya Totsuka was named manager of business development for Japan. Before joining Crown Bioscience, Totsuka was director and chief operating officer of business development for a Tokyo-based biotech firm and director of the original developer of disparity mutagenesis technology for the improvement and breeding of useful organisms, including microorganisms, cultured cells, plants and animals. Totsuka also held key positions with several leading pharmaceutical companies.

Mayet Pantastico was named director of business development for Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Korea. With more than 14 years of experience in sales and business development in the pharmaceutical industry, she was most recently sales and marketing manager in the Asia-Pacific region for a preclinical CRO focused on oncology models and GLP toxicology studies. She was also business development manager for a preclinical CRO focused on translational models, and she had sales and management roles with several other leading life-sciences companies.

“Both Mayet and Tetsuya are highly respected professionals with experience in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Laurie Heilmann, senior vice president of global strategy, marketing and business development at Crown Bioscience. “We have seen significant growth in this region, and we are expanding our presence there to meet the demand for our cutting-edge translational platforms and cost-effective drug development solutions for pharmaceutical companies in the region.”