Utah Appoints Director of State Life Science Cluster

Utah Appoints Director of State Life Science Cluster
The state of Utah has named Suzanne Winters, Ph.D., director of the Life Science Cluster. It is a newly created position that will operate under the direction of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and the Utah Science and Technology Research Initiative. The directorship holds primary responsibility for the implementation of the Utah Cluster Acceleration Partnership Life Science (UCAP LS), the core strategic plan for the development of Utah’s life-science sector. “It is a genuine honor to serve in the capacity of Life Science Cluster Director for Utah,” said Winters. “I look forward to working closely with key leaders from industry, government and education to support the evolution and growth of one of the most crucial sectors for the state’s economy. I am convinced there is no more important contribution we can make for the life-science community than to successfully implement the UCAP LS plan.”

Winters comes to her new post with extensive experience in industry, government and higher education. Before assuming the position of Life Science Cluster director, she served as the founding managing director of the BioInnovations Gateway, an innovative workforce training and business incubator that helps high-growth, life-science startups develop and execute promising ideas. She spent the first half of her career in research and development, focusing on product development and commercialization for medical devices, artificial organs and devices, including the Jarvik 7 Total Artificial Heart, and the IVOX, an implantable artificial lung.

Winters

Winters later served eight years at the intersection of science and public policy as the Utah State Science Advisor under Governor Michael O. Leavitt (who served from 1993 to 2003 and later as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2005 to 2009), working closely with the state’s research universities and life-science industry communities. She holds a B.A. in chemistry and a doctorate in pharmaceuticals. She has created content for numerous publications, both in the technical and public policy arenas, and holds multiple patents. She is a board member of several companies and non-profit organizations.

The UCAP LS report, performed by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice in close collaboration with dozens of top Utah life-science leaders, presents a picture of Utah’s life-science sector as a dynamic community whose growth rate significantly and consistently has outpaced that of the nation. For example, employment in the state’s life-sciences sector grew by nearly 26 percent from 2001 to 2010, compared to 8.4 percent nationally. In 2010, the sector contributed a combined $14.6 billion to the state’s economic output.

Utah’s life-sciences sector also is a source of high-wage jobs. The average annual wage in the sector (which includes medical devices and equipment, pharmaceuticals, medical labs and biomedical distribution) was approximately $59,000 in 2010, 50 percent higher than the overall average wage for the state’s private sector employees.

Life-science careers include working in medical devices and equipment, pharmaceuticals, medical labs and biomedical distribution. Winters says Utah has the jobs, but still lags behind in pay.

“Life-science employment in Utah has been extremely resilient in good and bad economic times,” said Winters. “Throughout the downturn life sciences remained on an upward trajectory.”

At the same time, there is room for significant improvement in the sector. Utah’s average of life-science wage, though much higher than the statewide average, is more than 30 percent less than the $84,992 national average life-science wage.

Within two weeks of her Aug. 2 appointment, Winters created a formal UCAP life-science implementation team with four committees representing the overarching objectives of the report: Novel medical devices; molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine; molecular medicine, drug discovery, development, and delivery; and natural products and dietary supplements.

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A New Board Member for Ximedica

Tuff

Providence, R.I.-based Ximedica has appointed a new board member. Geoff Tuff is a partner at Monitor, a company that works with other firms to help them grow. He serves as the leader of Monitor’s
innovation practice.

“Geoff’s focus has been in helping clients drive profitable top-line growth,” said Randall Barko, CEO of Ximedica. “The nature of his work spans the domains of corporate strategy, product strategy development and execution, organizational structure, training and tools. His involvement will help facilitate our efforts to continuously improve Ximedica’s offering to the medical device, drug delivery and consumer healthcare clients, which we serve globally.”

Tuff brings almost 20 years of experience at Monitor working in a wide range of industries that include pharmaceuticals, medical devices and consumer products, making him an apt fit for Ximedica’s board. He recently co-authored an article in the Harvard Business Review in which he discusses how successful companies must achieve total innovation. The path to such, according to Tuff’s article, means the need to strike “the right balance of core, adjacent, and transformational initiatives across the enterprise, and have put in the place the tools and capabilities to manage those various initiatives as parts of an integrated whole.”

Tuff earned his B.A. with honors from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., and holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass. Throughout his career, he has developed some of Monitor’s core methodologies related to driving top-line growth for clients, and currently is an account manager for several of the Cambridge-based firm’s leading clients.

Barko added, “Geoff’s innovative ideology brings solid business sense to Ximedica’s core abilities to provide an integrated solution from insight to outcome. We look forward to Geoff’s contributions as we continue our pursuit to become the premier outsourced medical product development solution provider to the healthcare industry.”

Outside Providence, Ximedica also has offices in Minnesota and Hong Kong. The company provides integrated human-centered research, product development, regulatory, and new product introduction manufacturing services to medical device and healthcare companies. Ximedica is ISO 13485:2003 certified and U.S. Food and Drug Administration-registered.

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Huron Life Sciences Hires New Managing Director

Dawson

Huron Consulting Group (HCG) has named Brad Dawson the new managing director of its Huron Life Sciences division. Dawson will advise pharmaceutical and medical device companies on research and development (R&D) to improve operational efficiencies, address regulatory compliance vulnerabilities, and enhance the overall value of the development pipeline.

“The life sciences industry is facing increased pressure to be more cost effective in its research and meet ongoing regulatory demands,” said Paul Silver, managing director of HCG and Huron Life Sciences solution leader. “Brad will help pharmaceutical and medical device clients improve their R&D processes to achieve better efficiencies in meeting regulatory and cost challenges. His expertise will help clients more efficiently integrate knowledge management, improve patient safety, and enhance functional operations to reduce time to market. We are pleased to welcome Brad to the Huron Life Sciences team and are confident that his deep experience will be a tremendous resource for our clients in this critical area.”

Dawson has more than 15 years of experience leading strategic growth initiatives, process improvement, and quality system optimization solutions for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies. Prior to joining Huron Life Sciences, Dawson worked at Quintiles Consulting where he served as the principal and practice leader for R&D process optimization. At Huron, Dawson will work with clients on solutions that transform core business and information management processes from early research and development through clinical operations, regulatory and quality management, and tech transfer.

The Huron Life Sciences practice provides a variety of consultation services to companies in the medical market, including medical device manufacturers. Huron Consulting Group is headquartered in Chicago, Ill.

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EOS Names VP of North American Operations

Morris

Electro Optical Systems (EOS) has appointed Tim Morris as its new vice president, EOS of North America Inc. The additive manufacturing technology company attracted Morris from Trumpf North America, where he supervised the sales and service activities of the Laser Technology Division.

“Tim Morris brings extensive, specialized experience to his new post that will help us find and support customers who wish to explore the many benefits of producing end-use parts with laser sintering,” said Hans J. Langer, Ph.D., founder and CEO of EOS.

In addition to his 10 years at Trumpf, a company that provides metal processing, laser-based production processes, electronic applications and hospital equipment, Morris has worked in a wide range of other fields, including aerospace, automotive, medical, and consumer electronics.

“I look forward to putting my experience and broad industry background to work for EOS,” Morris said. “We can help companies transition successfully from prototyping to production, and we can also support those who want to expand upon their traditional manufacturing processes.”

A number of North American companies already are manufacturing with EOS technology using one of the 130 systems currently installed in the field since EOS established a U.S. presence 10 years ago. Products are wide-ranging, from patient-specific plastic drill guides for surgery and polyamide components for unmanned aircraft to metal tooling inserts and dental copings. Metals, especially, are finding manufacturing applications in the medical industry. To date, approximately 450 of the 1,100 EOS systems installed globally (in all industries) are direct metal laser-sintering systems.

According to EOS, Morris’ duties in his new role include managing sales and marketing, service and application engineering, and administration. He also will oversee the EOS of North America Inc. family of companies such as Advanced Laser Materials and Integra LifeSciences Corporation, which specialize in researching and developing engineered materials for additive manufacturing processes, along with providing comprehensive customer support.

Morris will be based in Novi, Mich., where EOS has established its Technical Center for North America. The facility contains plastic and metal systems as well as a laboratory where applications engineers can meet with manufacturers to explore the suitability of the technology for their products.
EOS has been in operation since 1989 and is headquartered in Munich, Germany.