Appointment will drive new product and applications development

BIA Separations (BIA), a leading biochromatography development and manufacturing company, today announced it has appointed Pete Gagnon as Chief Scientific Officer. In his new role, he will drive the company’s new product and applications development, with a focus on the purification of products for gene therapy, oncolytic vaccines, exosomes and similar, and specifically increasing the safety of these products.

Previously President and CSO of Validated Biosystems, Gagnon assumes his new position with immediate effect. Gagnon has more than 30 years of experience in the biotech industry where he is widely respected for his work in the development of purification technology for the manufacture of biologics, including viruses and exosomes. The majority of his experience has been gained in the development of commercial purification procedures for recombinant human therapeutics. During his career, he has worked with all major chromatography suppliers, supporting the development of new products and applications in line with rapidly evolving industry needs.

Gagnon is the inventor of 20 granted patent families with 20 more pending, and has published more than 80 articles, cited in more than 700 scientific publications, addressing practical aspects of purifying biologics. He has authored a book titled Purification Tools for Monoclonal Antibodies, as well as being invited to contribute chapters to many other books, and sits on numerous scientific and editorial advisory boards.

Aleš Štrancar, CEO of BIA Separations, commented: “Pete’s scientific interests and experience are a perfect fit with our future development strategy and the stringent requirements associated with these classes of products. He has been an influential researcher and a user of BIA’s proprietary CIM® monolith technology for more than a decade, and his enthusiasm, practical skills and insights will make him an invaluable resource for our customers and partners, especially biochromatographyy in the fast-developing and challenging fields of virus and exosome purification. This is an area where we expect to see new product lines emerging.”

Pete Gagnon, CSO of BIA Separations added: “I am sincerely delighted to join BIA where I look forward to highlighting the unique abilities of monoliths to elevate product quality, safety, and processing efficiency for some of the most challenging product classes in the field of human therapeutics. Process developers should anticipate the emergence of important and exciting first-in-the-field capabilities by mid-year, and continuing thereafter.”

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