Mary Martin, PhD
Board of Directors
Michael Maguire, PhD
Shirley O’Dea, PhD
Daniel Castro
Edel O'Toole
Gillian Hendy, PhD
Development
Eoin Heffernan
& Strategy
Board of Directors
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).
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.
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.
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
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.
Technical Advisory Board
Professor Brian Glennon is Professor of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering in University College Dublin. Brian is also co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at APC and leads the introduction and integration of new technology into APC’s ACHIEVE and BIOACHIEVE programs.
Professor Byrne is a Senior Advisor to the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the worldwide leading applied research organisation. He was awarded the Gold Ring of the German Society of Engineering (VDI) for his insights into the fundamentals of material removal processes. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Taylor Research Medal of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, USA, in recognition of his outstanding research contributions. In 2017 he was awarded the Fraunhofer Taler Medal for his outstanding international contribution to applied R&D and Innovation.
He is the founder of GB Innovation Ltd. (2014) and is specialising in excellence in R&D and Innovation and associated incentive schemes. Gerry is actively engaging with and supporting numerous organisations in their R&D progression both in Ireland, Germany and internationally.