The Center for Breakthrough Medicines Makes Vital Leadership Appointments to Fuel Company Growth

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa., March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — The Center for Breakthrough Medicines (CBM), an end-to-end cell and gene therapy (CGT) contract development and manufacturing organization and provider of testing solutions located at Discovery Labs, has completed the appointments of four senior leadership positions. The Center for Breakthrough Medicines has placed a key focus on recruiting efforts to lead with the top talent in the industry. Each appointment plays a critical role in bringing the facilities online to deliver real solutions to advanced therapy developers.

Sybil Danby joined as Senior Vice President of Business Development & Strategy; Eileen Brett is the Vice President of Project Leadership; Dana Cipriano serves as Vice President of Testing and Analytical Services; and Emily Moran is Vice President of Viral Vector Manufacturing.

Sybil Danby, Senior Vice President, Business Development & Strategy

“Advanced therapies are the future of medicine, but their development has been stalled by a lack of functional manufacturing solutions and capacity. Unfortunately, existing manufacturing technologies that do well for large molecule products do not always translate to cell and gene therapies,” said Danby. “The Center for Breakthrough Medicines is in a unique position, and we are working to fill those gaps for customers with the right technologies and the capacity to support their needs. We are building out total solutions for small to large scale development, clinical through commercial production, and testing under one roof with significant capacity.”

Ms. Danby applies extensive expertise across the large molecule and advanced therapies landscape to guide clients in the development and implementation of manufacturing strategies that best position them for commercial success. This technical acumen is also applied to translating industry trends into a business capability strategy that ensures the most innovative offerings are available to CBM clients.

Prior to joining the Center for Breakthrough Medicines, Ms. Danby spent over three years with responsibility for the strategic business development of Paragon Bioservices, playing an active role in grooming the company for acquisition by Catalent Pharma Solutions for $1.2B in 2019. She previously spent two years at Pall Corporation as a driver of the development and sales of disruptive manufacturing technologies, and just under nine years at GSK in both the manufacturing and R&D organizations working on clinical and commercial monoclonal antibody products.

Eileen Brett, Vice President of Project Leadership

“At the Center for Breakthrough Medicines, we are daring to be different by bringing together top talent from world class biopharmaceutical companies, CDMOs and universities to create a campus community specializing in cell and gene therapies. We are taking the initiative to build highly collaborative teams with the brightest minds, all with the goal of delivering robust cell and gene therapies faster to patients,” said Brett. “I truly believe the best thinking and innovation comes when diverse perspectives are heard. Thus, I’m inspired to create these forums and foster this culture, all in the interest of finding cures for some of the world’s most challenging diseases.”

Ms. Brett has more than two decades of end-to-end project management and leadership experience for the development and manufacture of biotherapeutics, including cell and gene therapies. Most recently she was Head of the Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) Leaders organization for Janssen’s Biotherapeutics Development with responsibility for delivering the portfolio of biotherapeutic assets from discovery to post-launch. Prior to that, Ms. Brett gained process engineering and project leadership experience with an Architect and Engineering firm designing and building biotech facilities, progressing from her early days in quality engineering.

Dana Cipriano, Vice President of Testing and Analytical Services

“As we build and grow the Center for Breakthrough Medicines, we are completing all due diligence with quality and compliance as the backbone of our offering. We have created a testing and analytical services program to support characterization, release, safety, and custom assay development methods for clinical and commercial CGT products,” Cipriano commented. “We are also focused on building scalability into our testing services which will be pivotal in helping customers bring advanced medicines to patients to overcome devastating rare diseases and cancers.”

Ms. Cipriano is creating a testing and analytical services portfolio that enables efficient discovery, development, commercialization, and manufacturing of CGT products, supplying end-to-end solutions for CBM clients and enabling speed to market. Prior to this position, she was in leadership roles at Wuxi Advanced Therapies for two decades, most recently as Senior Director of Operations & Strategic Projects, tasked with directing GMP Laboratory Operations and processes, evolving technical strategic profiles and capital expansion projects for cell and gene therapy programs.

Emily Moran, Vice President of Viral Vector Manufacturing

“The Center for Breakthrough Medicines is poised to transform the advanced therapy manufacturing space as we know it by developing a foundation for innovation. High throughput capacity is optimized in robust processes that are designed to increase upstream productivity and full capsid recovery while remaining centered around quality and safety. Our capabilities include a diverse portfolio of industry proven solutions combined with trailblazing technology applied from process development through to clinical and commercial manufacturing,” said Moran. “At CBM, we are thinking bigger about delivering reliable, efficient solutions to industrialize the complex processes needed for production of advanced therapies. Our end-to-end solutions in one location greatly simplify the supply chain and accelerate development.”

Ms. Moran is applying vast ability in commercial viral vector and biologics drug substance manufacturing and drug product filling to build an organization laser focused on First Time Right execution, lean operational efficiencies, and high-quality standards. Prior to joining CBM, Ms. Moran was Head of Viral Vector Manufacturing at Lonza delivering both clinical and commercial viral vector products from 50L-2000L scale across multiple modalities. Previously, Ms. Moran spent 12 years with Sanofi in applied operational and quality roles of increasing responsibility.

“As the Center for Breakthrough Medicines progresses in realizing our goals of building the world’s only comprehensive solution for end-to-end cell and gene therapy development and manufacturing, we are committed to advancing this industry,” Audrey Greenberg, Co-founder, The Discovery Labs said. “We know that our success lies in being customer-centric and keeping the end customer—patients—in mind with each process. To this end, we are proud to have such exceptional female leaders on our team and will continue to recruit and build our team with diversity, inclusion, and the expertise needed to support customer success as fundamental drivers.”

The Center for Breakthrough Medicines
The Center for Breakthrough Medicines (CBM) is a horizontally integrated cell and gene therapy contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) enabling advanced therapy development and commercialization. CBM seeks to accelerate the time to market and affordability of advanced therapies from discovery to commercialization with single source, end-to-end solutions. The ability to host pre-clinical translational research and process development and scale from bench to bedside in one place offers the opportunity for incubators, academics, researchers, and companies small to large to align with the most comprehensive manufacturing partner in the industry.

The Discovery Labs
The Discovery Labs is the first complete global platform for discovery, development, and delivery of life-changing science and technology. The Discovery Labs ecosystem supports several signature businesses including the Center for Breakthrough Medicines (CBM), the largest single-point cell and gene therapy (CGT) contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) in the world, and Discovery Labs Real Estate which acquires and builds life science portfolios in global innovation hubs.