PHILADELPHIA, July 01, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Scout Bio, a biotechnology company revolutionizing pet medicine by delivering a pipeline of monoclonal antibodies and one-time AAV gene therapies for chronic animal health conditions, today announced the appointment of Ray O’Connor as its Chief Manufacturing Officer.
Mr. O’Connor’s unparalleled global technical leadership in novel biotherapeutics, process development, and technology transfer activities will advance Scout Bio’s robust portfolio to market. Mr. O’Connor brings more than 30 years of technical and leadership experience in human and animal health to this role, including senior leadership roles at Zoetis, Nexvet Biopharma, and Jazz Pharmaceuticals. In his role at Scout Bio, Mr. O’Connor will drive product development and manufacturing strategies.
“We are delighted to have an individual with Ray’s expertise to progress our monoclonals and single-injection AAV therapies into the key manufacturing phase and toward commercial launches,” said Chief Executive Officer Mark Heffernan, Ph.D. “This strategic appointment fills an important leadership role essential to delivering the next generation biopharmaceuticals in veterinary medicine.”
“Scout Bio has assembled one of the most advanced and broad pipelines in the animal health sector,” said Mr. O’Connor. “I am excited to join this highly motivated and proven team and to be part of the opportunity to deliver long acting and competitively priced novel biotherapeutics to owners and their pets.”
Mr. O’Connor’s CMC leadership experience spans three decades in the biopharmaceutical industry with senior global manufacturing roles in both animal and human therapeutics. Previous roles include Global Biologics Technical Leader at Zoetis, the world’s largest animal health company, a role he commenced after the 2017 acquisition of Nexvet Biopharma. During his leadership at Zoetis, Mr. O’Connor was a key contributor to the CMC development of Solensia, the first FDA approved animal health monoclonal antibody. He contributed heavily to the development of the monoclonal antibody manufacturing strategy for Zoetis, including the major expansion of the biopharmaceutical facility in Tullamore, Ireland. As Nexvet Biopharma’s VP of Technical Operations, Mr. O’Connor led the CMC strategy for animal health monoclonal antibodies.
Before joining Nexvet Biopharma, Mr. O’Connor held senior manufacturing roles at multiple human health companies including as the Head of Manufacturing at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, where he focused on designing and building internal manufacturing capabilities.
About Scout Bio
Scout Bio is a biotechnology company revolutionizing pet medicine by delivering a pipeline of monoclonal antibodies and one-time AAV gene therapies for chronic animal health conditions. Scout Bio’s therapies are designed to induce long-term expression of therapeutic proteins using AAV vector technology. Scout Bio has a research and development collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania’s Gene Therapy Program, a leader in the field of genetic medicine research. Scout Bio is a private company headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For more information, see www.scoutbio.co
