Avid Bioservices Inc., a dedicated biologics contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), has appointed Pramthesh (Prem) Patel, Ph.D., as vice president, process development for its mammalian cell business.
 
Dr. Patel is an accomplished biopharmaceutical industry executive with more than 30 years of experience and a track record of success in developing manufacturing processes for clinical trial material and commercial supplies. His career is highlighted by extended tenures supporting research, development and manufacturing activities at GSK (formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline) and Bristol Myers Squibb.
 
Prior to joining Avid, Patel spent more than 23 years at GSK, most recently serving as senior director. In this role he managed the team responsible for the company’s mammalian cell culture and microbial fermentation process development for biopharmaceuticals. While at GSK, he was also chairperson of the technology and platform progression review committee, as well as a member of the team responsible for establishing the overall growth strategy for the company’s entire biopharmaceutical CMC development division.
 
Patel also spent more than a decade with Bristol Myers Squibb, most recently as group leader responsible for designing and developing new and innovative mechanism-based screens adaptable to ultra-high throughput and aimed at discovering novel pharmacophores. Patel began his career as a postdoctoral scholar at Virgina Tech University. He earned a Ph.D. in microbial and cellular physiology from the University of Florida.
 
“Prem has spent more than 30 years helping drive innovation in the areas of biopharmaceutical research, development and manufacturing, serving in key leadership roles at two of the most successful global pharmaceutical companies. His recent work at GSK, spanning technology transfer, process scale-up, characterization and validation, and media optimization, is particularly relevant to our mammalian cell process development activities and will offer Avid great insight into how we can best serve our current and future Big Pharma customers. We are delighted to add his technical expertise and Big Pharma perspective to our team as we continue efforts to strategically grow our mammalian cell business,” said Nick Green, president and CEO of Avid Bioservices.

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Avid recently announced plans for further expanding its process development capacity for its mammalian cell business. As part of these efforts, Avid is expanding its state-of-the-art laboratories which could support an additional $20 million in annual process development revenue, doubling the company’s current process development capacity. The company anticipates that this expansion will be completed by the end of first calendar quarter in 2023.