iBio (NYSEA:IBIO) appointed Evert (Eef) Schimmelpennink to its board of directors, effective immediately.
In an executive leadership career spanning more than 20 years, Mr. Schimmelpennink has expertise across corporate development, commercial operations, manufacturing, and R&D to help build and scale a number of global public and private biopharmaceutical businesses.
Most recently, he served as CEO of Pfenex, using its patented Pfēnex Expression Technology platform to create an advanced pipeline of therapeutic equivalents, vaccines, biologics and biosimilars. Pfenex was acquired by Ligand Pharmaceuticals for approximately $516-million in October 2020. Mr. Schimmelpennink also served as CEO of Alvotech Ehf, a global biopharmaceutical company focused on becoming a leader in the biosimilar monoclonal antibody market.
In a statement, Tom Isett, chairman and CEO of iBio, said Mr. Schimmelpennink has a strong history of success leading companies with novel protein expression platforms to develop and commercialize biopharmaceutical products.
“He is joining our team at an opportune time, given we are adding our own in-house drug discovery capabilities to our existing contract development and manufacturing services, similar to what Eef did in his most recent leadership role at Pfenex,” Mr. Isett added.
Mr. Schimmelpennink said he is looking forward to working with his talented colleagues at iBio as the company continues to “harness the power of its unique plant-based FastPharming System to help reduce drug development times and costs, and, importantly, to help rapidly develop its own biopharmaceutical candidates to address unmet medical needs in human health and veterinary medicine.”
