

Board of Directors
| Denis M Hanley AM MBA FCPA Alan D Robertson BSc PhD William L Delaat BSc Malcolm J McComas BEc LLB Richard van den Broek John W Villiger MSocSci(Hons) PhD | |
Senior Management Team
Regional Directors
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Stephen Doyle - Europe Stephen Beckman - North America Philip Gregory - Asia Pacific | |
Bord of Directors
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Denis M Hanley AM MBA FCPA Independent Chairman |
Denis Hanley is a qualified accountant and company director with more than 36 years' experience in the management of technology-based growth businesses. He joined the Pharmaxis Board in 2001.
Denis spent 14 years with Baxter International Inc., a global medical products and services company. His career at Baxter included a number of international assignments including its Chicago headquarters and his last position was managing director of Baxter's Australian operations.
In 1983 Denis was founding chief executive officer and in 1986 executive chairman of the Australian-based separations technology company Memtec Ltd (ASX MET). Under his leadership Memtec grew into a NYSE listed (MET) global operating filtration and separations business with 1700 employees.
Since the sale of Memtec to US Filter in 1997 Denis has been a successful angel investor focussing on assisting the commercialisation of several Australian technologies. He is non-executive chairman of CathRx Ltd (ASX CXD) and Lochard Ltd and a non-executive director of Universal Biosensors Inc.
Denis holds an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Graduate School of Business where he was named a Baker Scholar.
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Alan D Robertson BSc PhD Chief Executive Officer |
Alan Robertson has more than 20 years' experience in drug discovery and product development with leading pharmaceutical companies, including 8 years with Wellcome plc in London and with Australian companies Faulding Ltd and Amrad Ltd. He also assisted early-stage pharmaceutical companies in their start-up and development and was the founding Managing Director of Pharmaxis.
Alan has been CEO of Pharmaxis since December 1999 and has been instrumental in building the company to its present position. Alan joined the board of Pharmaxis in July, 2000.
The co-inventor of 18 patents and author of more than 35 scientific papers, Alan has a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Glasgow and has extensive practical understanding of both the clinical and management aspects of the pharmaceutical industry.
He has been actively involved in the discovery, development and marketing of various compounds, including new treatments for migraine and cardiovascular disease. Alan is the inventor of the migraine therapeutic Zomig, which is marketed worldwide by AstraZeneca.
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William L Delaat BSc Non-Executive Director |
Will Delaat is a leading figure in Australia's pharmaceutical industry, with 35 years' global experience in the sector. He joined the Pharmaxis Board in June 2008.
Until his retirement, Will was managing director for 11 years of Merck Sharp & Dohme, Australia's largest exporter of prescription medicines.
During his career Will has held executive positions in both Europe and Australia for Merck and AstraZeneca. He is experienced in sales and marketing and has been responsible for international product launches and commercialisation of respiratory products.
Will also serves the pharmaceutical industry in several important representative roles. He is chairman of the Australian pharmaceutical industry's peak body, Medicines Australia, and chairman of the Pharmaceutical Industry Council.
Will holds a Bachelor of Science, Physiology & Chemistry with honours from the University of London. He is a member of our Audit Committee.
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Malcolm J McComas BEc LLB Non-Executive Director |
Malcolm McComas is a company director and former lawyer with more than 20 years' investment banking experience. He joined the Pharmaxis board in July 2003.
He is currently a consultant to Grant Samuel, the investment banking, property services and funds management group and was a director of Grant Samuel from 1999 to 2004. He previously served for 10 years as Managing Director of Investment Banking at County NatWest and its successor organization Salomon Smith Barney (now Citigroup) and in various executive roles with Morgan Grenfell (now Deutsche Bank) in Melbourne, Sydney and London.
He has worked with many high growth companies across various industry sectors and has experience in equity and debt finance, acquisitions and divestments and privatisations. He has led more than 50 initial public offerings and significant secondary offerings for companies, institutions and governments. He is a national councillor of the Financial Services Institute of Australia.
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Richard van den Broek CFA Non Executive Director |
Richard van den Broek is a life science investment manager with over 18 years experience in the biotech industry. He joined the Pharmaxis board in April 2009.
Mr van den Broek is founder and managing partner of HSMR Advisors LLC, a U.S. based fund manager with an investment emphasis on small and mid-cap biotech public companies. Prior to this Richard was a Partner at Cooper Hill Partners, LLC, an investment fund focused on the healthcare sector and earlier in his career worked as a biotech analyst, at Oppenheimer & Co., then Merrill Lynch, and finally at Hambrecht & Quist.
Mr van den Broek is a Chartered Financial Analyst, and is a graduate of Harvard University (and Deerfield Academy).
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John W Villiger MSocSci(Hons) PhD Non-Executive Director |
John Villiger is an independent director and investor. John co-founded The Medicines Company in 1996, and was Senior Vice President of Development until Febuary 2006. This business is NASDAQ listed with market capitalization of US$1.25 billion. The Medicines Company has a significant marketed product (Angiomax) with project sales of approximately $220 million in 2006, two other products in late stage clinical development (Cangrelor and Clevidipine), and around 300 employees.
Previously, John held various positions in product development at Roche from 1986 to 1996 in New Zealand and Switzerland, including International Project Director from 1991 to 1995 and Head of Global Project Management from 1995 to 1996. As Head of Global Project Management, he oversaw the development of Roche's pharmaceutical portfolio, with management responsibility for over 50 development programs and development teams in Switzerland, the UK, USA and Japan. John has a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Otago.
Senior Management Team
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Alan D Robertson BSc PhD Chief Executive Officer |
Alan Robertson has more than 20 years' experience in drug discovery and product development with leading pharmaceutical companies, including 8 years with Wellcome plc in London and with Australian companies Faulding Ltd and Amrad Ltd. He also assisted early-stage pharmaceutical companies in their start-up and development and was the founding Managing Director of Pharmaxis.
Alan has been CEO of Pharmaxis since December 1999 and has been instrumental in building the company to its present position. Alan joined the board of Pharmaxis in July, 2000.
The co-inventor of 18 patents and author of more than 35 scientific papers, Alan has a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Glasgow and has extensive practical understanding of both the clinical and management aspects of the pharmaceutical industry.
He has been actively involved in the discovery, development and marketing of various compounds, including new treatments for migraine and cardiovascular disease. Alan is the inventor of the migraine therapeutic Zomig, which is marketed worldwide by AstraZeneca.
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David McGarvey BA CA Company Secretary and Chief Financial Officer |
David has 18 years' experience as Chief Financial Officer of successful Australian-based international technology businesses, and he joined Pharmaxis in December 2002 in his current role.
After 10 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, David joined high technology start-up Memtec Limited as Chief Financial Officer in 1985. David was instrumental in the US listing of Memtec Ltd on NASDAQ and subsequently on the NYSE, involving SEC filings, full US GAAP financial statements and dual-jurisdiction debt and equity raisings. During his time at Memtec and its acquirer US Filter, David managed the financial and legal aspects of over 30 acquisitions, mergers and divestitures in a number of European and American countries.
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Brett Charlton MBBS PhD Medical Director |
Brett is a medical researcher and specialist in autoimmune disease and diabetes, and has over 15 years' experience in clinical trial design and management. Brett co-founded Pharmaxis with Bill Cowden in 1998 and was instrumental in negotiating licence and research arrangements and attracting funding. He has been medical director since 1998.
Brett has written more than 60 scientific papers, attracted significant research grants and served on prefessional society committees. He has been a consultant to the pharmaceutical, medical and biotech industry since 1985. Brett was founding Medical Director of the National Health Sciences Centre and established its Clinical Trial Unit.
Prior to joining Pharmaxis, he held positions with the Australian National University, Stanford University, the Baxter Centre for Medical Research, Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. Brett has an MBBS with Honours from the University of New South Wales and completed his PhD at the Centre for Biomedical Engineering in 1985.
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Gary Phillips BPharm MBA Chief Operating Officer |
Gary has broad operational experience across the pharmaceutical industry value chain after spending the last 22 years in the healthcare industry in Europe, Asia and Australia. He joined Pharmaxis in December, 2003.
Gary has an extensive track record in marketing and sales, including new product launches, brand repositioning, process improvement and customer targeting programs. He was previously CEO of Novartis Australia where he successfully launched breakthrough oncology and ophthalmology products and relaunched newly acquired primary care products. His previous roles include Area Director, Asia, for Novartis and CEO of Ciba Geigy in Hungary.
He has an honours degree in Pharmacy from Nottingham University, UK and an MBA from Henley Management College.
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John F Crapper BSc MBA Operations Director |
John has 32 years of manufacturing and operations experience, 17 years of which has been in the pharmaceutical industry. He is formerly Senior Vice-President and General Manager of Memcor International and Managing Director Memcor Australia Pty Ltd. Formerly a subsidiary of Memtec Ltd, is a world leader in the design and manufacture of microfiltration membranes and systems.
During his 15 years at Memcor, John managed the scale up manufacturing equipment and processes from the company's research and development group, created full scale production operations and managed the establishment of the Quality Assurance and Enterprise Planning Resource systems.
Prior to this John was Technical Director at Syntex Pharmaceutical's Animal Health division and start-up veterinary pharmaceutical company, VR Laboratories
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Ian A McDonald BSc PhD Chief Scientific Officer |
Dr Ian McDonald has 25 years' international experience in managing drug discovery and design teams in Europe and USA. He was most recently Vice President of Drug Discovery at Structural GenomiX, USA. His prior experience includes a similar position at Structural Bioinformatics, Vice President of Chemistry with responsibilities for medicinal and bio-chemistry at SIBIA Neuroscience (now part of Merck Research Laboratories) and Merrell Dow (now part of Sanofi-Aventis). Under his leadership, six compounds have been developed and evaluated in clinical trials.
Ian was awarded his BSc and PhD degrees in chemistry from the University of Western Australia. He has co-authored over 74 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, and is an inventor on 38 issued US patents.
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Dr Howard Fox MBBS Chief Medical Officer |
Dr Fox has more than 15 years experience in the international pharmaceutical industry and joined Pharmaxis as Chief Medical Officer in 2009.
Prior to joining Pharmaxis Howard spent 10 years specialising in respiratory product development through his roles as Global Brand Medical Director and Senior Clinical Research Physician for Novartis where he led Global clinical input for US, European, Japanese, Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand respiratory product approvals.
Before entering the pharmaceutical industry Howard worked as a physician in both Australia and the UK and subsequently as a consultant medical advisor to multinational pharmaceutical companies.
Regional Directors
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Stephen Doyle European Regional Director |
Steve Doyle has over 25 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry and joined Pharmaxis in October 2008.
Prior to this Steve worked on both the client and service sides of the industry. He has held senior sales and marketing roles at blue chip companies such as Wyeth, Syntex and Roche as well as setting up and running his own marketing consultancy.
Much of his career has focused on specialist hospital areas including oncology/haematology, transplantation, immunology and AIDS/HIV.
His experience encompasses product and sales management, new product launches and strategic and business planning. He also has an extensive background in e-marketing.
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Stephen Beckman North American Regional Director |
Stephen Beckman has more than 18 years of pharmaceutical industry experience in the U.S. and globally in the areas of sales, marketing, business development, partnership management, and strategic planning.
Prior to Pharmaxis he was president of a specialty company in the respiratory market, and corporate vice president of global franchise management at Altana with over $2 billion in sales. Stephen also held progressively responsible positions with GlaxoSmithKline where he was worldwide director of pulmonary marketing, AstraZeneca, Fisons Pharmaceutical Corporation and Marion Merrell Dow.
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Philip Gregory Asian Pacific Regional Director |
Philip has almost 25 years' experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry having worked for major multi-nationals such as Fisons, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer and Yamanouchi.
He has specialised knowledge in the respiratory and allergy therapeutic fields and has worked in marketing, product development, business development and strategic planning.
Philip has held senior level positions in Holland, Japan. USA and Asia Pacific and led regional marketing groups in Europe. Philip joined Pharmaxis in 2004 to support the worldwide commercialisation of Aridol and Bronchitol. He relocated to Shanghai in January 2007 to develop Pharmaxis' Asia Pacific business.
updated 28th January, 2011
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