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Circassia Announces the Appointment of Rod Hafner as Vice President, Research and Development
Circassia Ltd, a specialty biopharmaceutical company focused on controlling immune system responses, today announced the appointment of experienced industry scientist Dr Rod Hafner as Vice President, Research and Development.
"We are delighted that Rod is joining the team at Circassia," said Charles Swingland, Chairman of Circassia. "His experience of establishing and running research and development organisations, and particularly his focus on outsourcing to external experts, fits ideally with Circassia's business model. I look forward to working with Rod over the coming years as we build a world-class biopharmaceutical company."
"I am thrilled to be joining Circassia at this exciting point in the company's growth," said Dr Rod Hafner. "With its novel technology, experienced management team and strong financial backing, the company has a great future. Having previously built outsourced development teams for a number of organisations, I relish the prospect of doing the same for Circassia, to drive forward our important immune system control products."
Rod brings over fifteen years international experience in the pharmaceutical industry in both multinationals and biotechnology companies. Following an early career at Proctor & Gamble, Wyeth and a period as Head of Project Management at Cortecs Ltd he joined PowderJect Pharmaceuticals plc in 1998. He held a number of positions in PowderJect including Director of Programme Management and Vice President of Pre-Development. After PowderJect's 2002 acquisition of Circassia's development programmes he established a virtual team to run the projects utilising an out-sourcing business model.
Following the acquisition of PowderJect by Chiron in 2003, he joined the Scandinavian drug delivery company OptiNose to set up the UK Operating Company. At OptiNose his management of the outsourced development team allowed the rapid progression of two drug-device combination products from concept through phase I studies to the point of readiness to start phase II studies.
01 March 2007