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Meet the Team

excelling beyond

Michael McGuire

Michael Maguire, PhD

Chief Executive Officer, Founder and Executive Board Member
Ann Brady

Ann Brady, PhD

Chief Business Officer, and Executive Board Member

Eoin Heffernan ACA

Sr Director, Finance and Strategy
Michael McGuire

Michael Maguire, PhD

Chief Executive Officer, Founder and Executive Board Member
Ann Brady

Ann Brady, PhD

Chief Business Officer, and Executive Board Member

Eoin Heffernan ACA

Sr Director, Finance and Strategy
Board of Directors

Eunan Maguire (Chairman) - AixThera, Emergent BioSciences, Adapt Pharma, Jazz, Azur, King, Elan

Eunan Maguire is an experienced pharmaceutical executive. Most recently he co-founded Adapt Pharma – a leader in opioid overdose treatment – and served as its Chief Operating Officer until its sale to Emergent BioSolutions. Eunan previously co-founded Azur Pharma – a CNS and Women’s Health Pharmaceutical business – and served as its President until it merged with Jazz Pharmaceuticals. He subsequently led strategy and corporate development at Jazz. Earlier in his career, Eunan led business development at King Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer) and Strategy at Elan Corporation. Eunan is an accountant by profession and trained at KPMG. His board memberships include AixThera, ALSHC and ONK Therapeutics.

Ann Brady, PhD - President of Theravance Biopharma

Ann Brady, PhD., currently serves as Chief Business Officer and Executive Board member of Avectas. Prior to joining Avectas in February 2023 Ann served as President, Theravance Biopharma Ireland and a board member of An2H Discovery Ltd. Ann brings over 20 years experience in the bio-pharma industry through global roles in business development, alliance management, corporate strategy and commercial operations gained in both developed and emerging markets. Ann served in senior executive roles at Shire, plc and élan Corporation, plc. She holds a BA (Mod) Natural Sciences and a PhD (Chemistry) from Trinity College, Dublin and is a member of the Institute of Directors of Ireland (MIoD).

Mary Martin, PhD - Horizon, Vidara, AGI, Elan

Mary Martin, Ph.D. has over 30 years experience in drug delivery technology development and all aspects of product development and commercialisation. Prior to joining Avectas, Mary served as Senior Vice President Global Regulatory, Quality and R&D Project Management with Horizon Therapeutics, following its acquisition of Vidara Therapeutics. Mary held senior leadership roles in, and was a board member of, Vidara Therapeutics and AGI Therapeutics. Mary spent the first fifteen years of her career across a number of technical and business roles with the drug delivery division of Elan. Mary holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology, a Certified Diploma in Accounting and Finance (ACCA) and is a Chartered Director and a member of the Institute of Directors of Ireland (MIoD).

Barry Wohl - Apnimed, Macrolide, Symbal, Harvard Business School

Barry Wohl has diverse operating and strategic planning experience in both the medical device and biopharma sectors. He is currently Chief Business Officer at Apnimed, a venture-backed, clinical-stage company developing novel pharmaceuticals for Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Previously, he was Senior Director of Alliances at Macrolide Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that role, he co-founded Symbal Therapeutics and led the company to sublicense its lead development candidate to a pharmaceutical partner. He has also worked with global biotech firms of all sizes and development stages as a strategy consultant with IMS Consulting Group (now IQVIA) and concurrently in a sell-side transaction advisory role with IMS Health Capital. He started his career with Medtronic, where he worked as a product design engineer and later as a global clinical trial lead. Barry holds degrees in biomedical and mechanical engineering, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Barry Leonard - DCC Healthcare, Virtus

Barry Leonard is an Engineer, Entrepreneur and Company Director. He founded and led Virtus Ltd, an OEM medical devices manufacturer serving global brands including Hill-Rom, Smith & Nephew, Patterson Dental and KCI. At its peak, Virtus employed 250 highly skilled individuals between its Irish and US FDA approved manufacturing sites. Virtus was part-acquired by DCC plc. and ultimately sold to Hillenbrand Industries Inc. in 2014. Barry brings a wealth of manufacturing, medical devices and corporate strategy experience to the board.

Michael Maguire, PhD - CEO Avectas

Michael is CEO of Avectas which he co-founded in 2012. He is a capable and motivated business leader with demonstrated track record in both start-up biotechnology and established medical device companies. He has led Avectas’ funding and business collaboration activities. Michael works closely with the Avectas Board, shareholders, internal and external teams to grow Avectas. He holds a BSc.Eng (Biomedical Engineering) from Trinity College Dublin, M.EngSc (Biomedical Engineering) and PhD (Drug Delivery) from Maynooth University.

Scientific Advisory board

Prof. Mark Lowdell (Chairman) - UCL, Royal Free Hospital, London

Professor Lowdell is the Director of Cellular Therapy at University College London (UCL) and runs the largest of the GMP production units with over 600m2 of manufacturing space. He is the qualified person (QP) for release of Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) for clinical trials. Initiating, as well as being involved in eight cell therapy trials at present, five of which are UK national trials. He has been an advisor to UK Government regulatory bodies on the regulation of ATMPs and is an accredited assessor for one of the UK Government departments. He has worked extensively on quality standards for ATMPs and is the UK National Representative to the board of JACIE, the professional body responsible for accreditation of haematotherapies across the EU. Professor Lowdell’s research is in the fields of immunotherapy of viral infections, tumor immunotherapy and advanced regenerative medicine.

Prof. Bruce L. Levine - University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Bruce Levine, Barbara and Edward Netter Professor in Cancer Gene Therapy, is the Founding Director of the Clinical Cell and Vaccine Production Facility (CVPF) in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. He received a B.A. (Biology) from Penn and a Ph.D. in Immunology and Infectious Diseases from Johns Hopkins. First-in-human adoptive immunotherapy trials include the first use of a lentiviral vector, the first infusions of gene edited cells, and the first use of lentivirally-modified cells to treat cancer. Dr. Levine has overseen the production, testing and release of 3,000 cellular products administered to >1,300 patients in clinical trials since 1996. He is co-inventor of the first FDA approved gene therapy (Kymriah), chimeric antigen receptor T cells for leukemia and lymphoma, licensed to Novartis. Dr. Levine is co-inventor on 27 issued US patents and co-author of >180 manuscripts and book chapters with a Google Scholar citation h-index of 90. He is a Co-Founder of Tmunity Therapeutics, a spinout of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Levine is a recipient of the William Osler Patient Oriented Research Award, the Wallace H. Coulter Award for Healthcare Innovation, the National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match ONE Forum 2020 Dennis Confer Innovate Award, serves as President of the International Society for Cell and Gene Therapy, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. He has written for Scientific American and Wired and has been interviewed by the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, Time Magazine, National Geographic, Bloomberg, Forbes, BBC, and other international media outlets.

Prof. Evren Alici - Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Dr. Evren Alici is an Assistant Professor of Hematology at Karolinska Institutet, Department of Medicine, Stockholm, Sweden. He received his MD and did his residency at the Ege University. He received his Ph.D. in 2006 at Karolinska Institutet. His main research interest is natural killer cells, multiple myeloma, lentiviral and retroviral gene transfer, stem cell transplantation and immunology. He is a member of several international and national committees, advisory boards and scientific meetings. He has mentored many trainees, 3 PhD. students and 2 post docs.

Become a Partner

Avectas’ Solupore platform offers a cell engineering solution for next generation cell and gene therapies. Partnerships are essential to ensure better patient outcomes, and we are actively seeking to engage with companies and researchers who are developing these lifesaving gene modified cell therapy products.

If you would like to learn more about working with Avectas and our cell engineering technology, get in touch with us.

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