BPTC Names Wells to Senior Role

Keith H. Wells, Ph.D., has been named a senior consultant at Bioprocess Technology Consultants, Inc. (BPTC). Dr. Wells joins BPTC after 13 years at Biologics Consulting Group (BCG), where he was senior consultant and New England office head. He consulted for a range of clients including government agencies, non-governmental organizations, small virtual companies, and multinational biopharmaceutical corporations.

“We are excited to bring such a talented manufacturing and process development expert to the team and to supplement our expertise in the area of vaccines and medical countermeasures for biological defense,” said Howard L. Levine, Ph.D., President of BPTC. “Clients will benefit from Keith’s knowledge about design, validation, and operation of biological manufacturing facilities, as well as his valuable experience in the preparation and filing of regulatory submissions in the U.S. and abroad.”

Before BCG, Dr. Wells was senior director, Manufacturing and Process Development, at Acambis, where he directed process development, process validation, and manufacturing for all vaccine and immune globulin products. Previously, he was director of Vaccine Production and Product Development at the Salk Institute Government Services Division. There he headed process development, validation, and manufacturing in a multiuse, biological safety level 3 facility for both government and private clients. Before that, he was research fellow in Biological Process R&D at Merck. His responsibilities included process development and optimization, culture medium development, and process scale-up for human vaccine and gene therapy products.

Involved with the development of numerous vaccines against emerging diseases and biological threat agents, he is a member of the steering committee for the DARPA/UPMC 21st Century Biodefense Advanced Development and Manufacturing of Biological Countermeasures effort.