BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nuvelution Pharma, Inc., today announced that Ronald Martell, has been appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer. He will also serve on the Company’s Board of Directors. Mr. Martell brings more than 30 years of experience in business development and managing biopharmaceutical companies to the Nuvelution leadership team.
“What attracted me to Nuvelution is its innovative business model of financial R&D risk sharing coupled with the drug development expertise of its highly experienced and success-driven executive team,” said Mr. Martell. “In addition, the extensive experience of identifying and developing novel therapeutic assets by the teams at Blackstone Life Sciences and Novo Ventures adds additional depth enabling Nuvelution to better capitalize on promising biopharmaceutical investment opportunities. I look forward to contributing my expertise and using my relationships to identify, develop and bring important new medicines to physicians and their patients.”
“Ronald’s broad industry network and background leading a significant number of companies and transactions, including several worth billions of dollars during his time at ImClone, strengthen our management team and add invaluable experience to our board,” said Nicholas Simon, Nuvelution Board Member and Senior Managing Director at Blackstone Life Sciences. Nick added, “The partnership of Novo Holdings and Blackstone Lifesciences provides significant domain expertise and financial resources to support the mission of Nuvelution.”
Thomas Dyrberg, Nuvelution Board Member and Managing Partner at Novo Holdings added, “Ronald’s successful record of licensing, commercializing and selling assets, as well as leading both private and public companies toward favorable financial outcomes, made him the clear candidate for the CEO position.”
Mr. Martell is a serial biopharmaceutical entrepreneur and a founder of four biopharmaceutical companies, and has served on the boards of several others. He was most recently Founder and Executive Chairman of Indapta and Chief Executive Officer at Achieve Life Sciences, where he led the merger of the company with Oncogenex. Prior to that, he held similar roles at Sevion, NeurogesX and Poniard Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career Mr. Martell served as Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at ImClone Systems, where he was instrumental in the deals with Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck KGaA and built ImClone Systems' worldwide commercial operations and field sales force to market and commercialize Erbitux®. Before joining ImClone Systems, Mr. Martell worked for more than 10 years at Genentech in a variety of leadership positions, the last of which was Group Manager, Oncology. At Genentech, he was responsible for building the company's oncology franchise, including the launch of Herceptin® for metastatic HER-2 positive breast cancer and Rituxan® for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Mr. Martell began his career at Roche Pharmaceuticals.
“Ron is well suited to lead Nuvelution’s future activities in a field that demands creativity and domain expertise,” said Arthur Higgins, Nuvelution Board Chairman. “Ron builds on a foundation constructed by Sandy Zweifach, our Co-Founder and Senior Advisor and former CEO, whom we thank for all his contributions in both establishing and positioning Nuvelution for continued success.”
About Nuvelution Pharma
Nuvelution leverages its extensive knowledge, experience and relationships in the pharma and biotech industries to deploy capital in risk-sharing collaborations with companies where product development can be facilitated by both capital and human resources with the goal of making this model an essential tool for pharma and biotech companies to bring essential medicines to patients. For more information, please visit www.nvtpharma.com.