Cesca Therapeutics Reorganizes Sales and Marketing Structure

Rancho Cordova, Calif.-based Cesca Therapeutics Inc., an autologous cell-based regenerative medicine company, has restructured its sales, marketing and technical support organization and appointed Tim Lee as director of international sales. The restructuring is aimed at further strengthening its cord blood business and new point of care and clinical commercial programs by providing more dedicated resource leadership to each discipline.

The restructuring will realign Hal Baker from his current role as vice president of commercial operations, to an external consulting and advisory role, which will ensure an orderly and seamless transition of his existing responsibilities with specific attention given to cord blood sales and marketing initiatives. The underlying areas of Baker’s functional leadership are to be divided within Cesca’s new structure for maximum focus on growing each area of the business.

In the role of director of international sales, which is a newly formed position, Lee’s primary focus will be to lead global cord blood product sales and services. In addition, as Cesca’s clinical programs reach therapeutic market commercialization, Lee will work directly with company President Ken Harris to develop and implement the sales and marketing resources to commercialize and scale these programs.

Lee has been involved with the medical and therapeutic research instrument industry for more than 20 years. Over the past nine years, Lee has led sales and marketing efforts at BioSpherix, a “cell” focused equipment designer, developer and manufacturer specializing in customized, end-to-end, cell manufacturing solutions, used primarily as optimized environmentally controlled isolation systems replacing large footprint, expensive cGMP (current good manufacturing practices) facilities. In his role, Lee has successfully led efforts to develop the global cancer research, stem cell processing and cell therapy markets for Biospherix.

Oversight of technical initiatives specific to cord blood marketing and customer support will now be led by Mitch Sivilotti, chief biologist at Cesca. Sivilotti has extensive direct cord blood clinical and banking experience and in connection with overseeing the biological development programs, he has leadership responsibility for the company’s cord blood new product design and development programs, thereby providing maximum synchronization of these interdependent functions.

“We are excited to announce Tim Lee as our new director of international sales,” said CEO Matthew Plavan. “Tim’s broad regenerative medicine background, proven track record and extensive industry network makes him uniquely qualified to serve as a key member of our team focused on continued cord blood market leadership. This appointment, in addition to the overall restructuring of the group, reflects our goal of realigning our company to best address the cord blood market as well as the large clinical market opportunities at the point-of-care. Equally as important, I want to thank Hal for accomplishing our mission to optimize and streamline our global sales channels and distribution networks and for his accomplishments in expanding our cord blood market share in Europe, the Middle East and Asia over the past five years. Hal has proven to be a capable executive willing to take on complex challenges and get the job done. We appreciate his ongoing dedication during this transition period and wish him luck on his future endeavors thereafter.”