Catalent Pharma Solutions announced two senior appointments to further strengthen its global biologics business.

Andrew Sandford joins Catalent as Vice President Business Development, Biologics, and will focus on growth of the company's existing biologics offerings, including the recently completed Biomanufacturing Center of Excellence in Madison, WI, and its high-performance production cell line offering based on the proprietary  GPEx system, as well as Catalent's new SMARTag ADC technology. In addition, he will focus on driving global business and licensing opportunities to deliver sustainable long-term growth.

Mr. Sandford previously served as the Vice President of Business Development for Selexis, Inc., a subsidiary of Selexis SA, where he established the U.S. subsidiary of the company and was responsible for global transactional and strategic value creation.

Prior to this, he worked with Dow Chemical's Ventures Business Unit; Dowpharma, and Cambrex Biopharma, which was latterly acquired by Lonza Biologics.

A microbiologist by education, Mr. Sandford holds a BS from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

In a newly created role, Catalent has also appointed Dr. Jennifer Mitcham as Director, Business Development for Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC), Biologics.

Dr. Mitcham will focus on driving the development pipeline and global customer base for the SMARTag ADC technology platform. She joins Catalent from Theraclone Sciences where she was Senior Director, Program Management, responsible for the development of the lead clinical antibody therapeutic program. Prior to Theraclone, Dr. Mitcham was with Corixa Corporation where she managed the oncology antibody development portfolio and was a Group Leader in Tumor Antigen Discovery. Dr. Mitcham conducted her postdoctoral research at Immunex Corp, now Amgen, and holds both a BS in Biochemistry & Biophysics from Texas A&M University and a PhD in Molecular Genetics from University of Colorado Boulder.

"Andrew and Jennifer bring a wealth of experience to Catalent as we look to significantly grow our Biologics business," commented Jonathan Arnold, Vice President & General Manager of Catalent Biologics. "Andrew has successfully launched biologics technology platforms in his previous roles and this will prove invaluable in support of our SMARTag technology. Jennifer has experience in drug development and has been a customer of Catalent's proprietary GPEx technology for over ten years."