emotive, the award-winning global healthcare communications agency, is delighted to announce the creation of a new business unit dedicated to advanced therapies.
emotive, the award-winning global healthcare communications agency, is delighted to announce the creation of a new business unit dedicated to advanced therapies. The BU will be led by Dr Germano Ferrari, an expert in cell and gene therapies, who joins emotive following 20 years’ in research as well as holding medical affairs and commercial roles within biopharma and diagnostics.
As the agency continues to grow its client list of global and international accounts, a large proportion of this work is in the field of rare and ultra-rare disorders where advanced therapies will play an important part in treatment protocols. With work ongoing preparing for the global launch of one of the earliest gene therapies as well as developing HCP engagement with gene silencing technology and educating on cell therapies such as CAR-T, the new business unit will provide core expertise in this emerging and highly specialised field. A new office planned for Cambridge, Massachusetts later this year, will provide further support to our clients on both EU and US launches.
Founder and Chief Executive of emotive Chris Edmonds said “At a recent conference in the US, I heard from the first physician to treat a patient with a licensed product in a rare and previously untreatable eye disease. He explained the impact on the life of the patient and went on to describe how he sees gene therapy as a historic moment in medicine. I could not agree more. By putting the experience we already have into a dedicated unit with Germano at the helm, we have an opportunity to be at the forefront of this incredible moment and play an important role supporting the biopharm companies pioneering in this field.”
Dr Germano Ferrari joins emotive as VP, Advanced Therapies to oversee the new business unit. With a PhD in Biotechnology along with an MBA, Germano is an expert in cell and gene therapies as well as having research experience in hematology. He previously spent 18 years in a variety of medical affairs and commercial roles at biopharma and diagnostics and then as a Programme Manager at the UK’s Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult where he helped develop commercialisation pathways for several pre-clinical AT products.
Dr Ferrari said “Advanced therapies represent a growing universe that has completed its embryonal stage of development and offer everyday new possibilities to overcome diseases where traditional approaches did not prove effective. We have now reached a turning point where the awareness of what is a cell or gene therapy is growing and where the reliable and correct sharing of information is of pivotal importance for the companies, the central authorities, and also for medical specialists, scientists and patients. This is to allow advanced therapies to create and consolidate their invaluable role in the health care system. I am honored to work with the emotive team in this challenging and rewarding environment to help biopharmaceutical companies involved in this innovative area bring life-changing therapies to the patients”.
Joining Germano in the new unit will be Dr Silvana Bardelli who is promoted to Advanced Therapies Expert. Silvana holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the Human Molecular Genetics Unit at the University of Insurbia in Italy. She completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School and has spent over 8 years working across a broad variety of research, regulatory, quality assurance and medical writing roles at scientific institutions across the globe, including Singapore, Switzerland, London, Belgium, USA and Italy.
About emotive.
emotive was founded over 15 years ago with the simple vision of changing lives by helping those who are unwell access new and amazing treatments that can make them better. The highly skilled, experienced team work with leading companies in life sciences including advanced therapy, medical device and rare disorder specialists in the pre, peri and post launch stages of the product lifecycle.
Working in rare disorders and with advanced therapies and orphan products, comes with unique complexities and challenges. emotive has a wealth of experience supporting clients across a wide range of rare disorders with novel indications. Currently, 75% of emotive’s work is dedicated to rare and ultra-rare disorders at various stages of the product lifecycle and with advanced products such as gene therapies, gene silencing and cell therapies.
For more information about emotive email chris@thinkemotive.com.
Author: Fiona Jones
| fiona.jones@thinkemotive.com
