LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Biopharmaceutical firm Ablynx NV (ABLYF.PK) Tuesday announced the appointment of Johan Heylen as its Chief Commercial Officer. Heylen will assume responsibility for all Ablynx's commercial activities.
Most recently, he was Executive Director, Global Commercial Lead, Cancer Immunotherapeutics, at GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK, GSK.L), where he headed the global commercial teams and was responsible for the development and implementation of the launch strategy for GSK's cancer immunotherapeutics portfolio.
Prior to that, Heylen led and launched the successful global commercial and marketing efforts for three of GSK's paediatric vaccines, Rotarix, Priorix and Varilix, which together achieved sales of more than 1.5 billion euros.
Edwin Moses, CEO of Ablynx, said, 'Johan joins Ablynx as Chief Commercial Officer at an important stage in our development as a biopharmaceutical company. His extensive commercial experience with some of the world's leading companies will help Ablynx to maximise the potential of our pipeline as our programmes move through the clinic and towards the market.'
Heylen added, 'Ablynx has an extraordinary pipeline of products based on its unique Nanobody discovery platform, validated by an impressive list of partners. I look forward to working with the first-class team to support the company as it moves to the next stage of development and begins to anticipate the commercialisation of the first Nanobody-based therapeutics.'
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX