Roger J. Lias, Ph.D., has been appointed president and chief executive officer, Peregrine Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Lias has more than 20 years of contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) management experience, and currently serves on the Peregrine board of directors and serves as president of Avid Bioservices, Peregrine’s CDMO subsidiary. Dr. Lias succeeds Steven W. King, who resigned as president and chief executive officer to pursue other interests.

Dr. Lias’ appointment is part of Peregrine’s ongoing transition to become a dedicated CDMO. The company is actively implementing a strategic plan designed to diversify and broaden its customer base and project mix, and expand and strengthen its CDMO service offerings. Additionally, Peregrine is in the process of officially changing the company’s name to Avid Bioservices, which is expected to be completed in early 2018.

Dr. Lias previously held senior management positions at Cytovance Biologics, KBI BioPharma, Diosynth RTP (formerly Covance Biotechnology Services) and Lonza Biologics.

“We believe that Roger is best equipped to lead Peregrine, including the completion of the company’s transition to a pure play CDMO operating under the Avid Bioservices name.  With the demand for biologics manufacturing exceeding the industry’s current capacity and expected to continue to grow in coming years, Roger and his team have worked aggressively to establish a strategic plan that we anticipate will allow the company to take advantage of this significant market opportunity.  The team has already made important progress implementing this plan and we look forward to their continued execution of the strategy to best position our CDMO business for success,” said Joseph Carleone, Ph.D., chairman of Peregrine.  “We would like to thank Steve King for the important contributions that he has made to both the Peregrine and Avid businesses and wish him luck with his future endeavors.”