Cognate BioServices Announces the Appointment of Two Independent Board Members

MEMPHIS, Aug. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Cognate BioServices, Inc. announced today the appointments of Timothy Moore and Steven Kasok as independent non-executive members of its Board of Directors.

"We are excited to welcome Tim Moore and Steve Kasok to our Board of Directors. They bring decades of leadership in key commercial areas of cell and gene therapy. We are thrilled to be able to work with them as we aggressively scale the business to meet the needs of our clients. Tim and Steve's counsel and expertise will bring additional highly relevant experience to our Board and help strengthen Cognate's core competencies in the commercial scale-up of its global operations, ultimately to better serve our clients and the patients they serve," said J. Kelly Ganjei, Cognate CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Mr. Steven Kasok brings considerable experience to the Cognate Board.  He has served as Chief Financial Officer and co-founder of two very successful companies in the CDMO space.  Most recently, Steve co-founded Brammer Bio and served as a board member and Chief Financial Officer.  Prior to Brammer, Steve co-founded Gallus BioPharmaceuticals and was Chief Financial Officer.  Both Brammer and Gallus were acquired and are now part of Thermo Fisher Scientific.  In his roles as Chief Financial Officer, Steve had direct responsibility for finance, human resources, information technology, and the legal functions.  Before Brammer and Gallus, Steve served as Vice President and Treasurer of Millipore Corporation (acquired by Merck KGaA); Chief Financial Officer of Cabot Supermetals, Treasurer and Business Development Officer at Haemonetics Corp., and held a variety of roles within Converse Inc. and GE.  Steve earned a B.S. in finance from Clarkson University and a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Mr. Tim Moore is currently President and Chief Operating Officer of Pact Pharma.  Tim has over three decades of leadership experience in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and operations.  Prior to joining PACT, he served as Executive Vice President, Technical Operations at Kite, a Gilead Company, since March of 2016.  During this time Mr. Moore was responsible for overseeing the process development, manufacturing, quality and supply chain for the launch of Yescarta®, one of the first CAR T therapies to be developed, manufactured and commercialized, as well as advancement of the Kite pipeline.  In addition, Mr. Moore globally expanded the biopharmaceutical operations to serve and support the US, EU, as well as key partners in Asia.  Prior to Kite, Mr. Moore served as the Senior Vice President, Head of Global Technical Operations – Biologics of Genentech, Inc. and as a member of the Genentech Executive Committee since 2010. In this role, Mr. Moore oversaw global leadership for more than 7,500 professionals across 10 internal sites and over 37 contract manufacturing organizations, as well as global manufacturing and end-to-end quality supply performance of more than 20 biological product families. Prior to that, Mr. Moore was Genentech's Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain and Global Engineering from 2007 to 2010. Previously, Mr. Moore served as Vice President, Operations at ZLB Behring (formerly Aventis Behring). He is currently a member of ISPE, PDA and has been a part of the Executive Committee of BioPhorum and serves as a Board member for Cerus. Mr. Moore received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Tulsa University and a M.S. in Engineering Management from Northwestern University.

About Cognate BioServices, Inc.

Cognate is the leading CDMO for the development and manufacturing of autologous and allogeneic cell and gene therapy products. We are a dynamic, results-driven, organization focused on providing the broadest range of commercialization services to regenerative medicine, cellular immunotherapy and advance cell therapy companies. Cognate provides a unique combination of custom services to companies across all points of clinical and commercial development specializing in mid to late stage clinical trials and supporting our clients through product scale-up into commercial manufacturing. Cognate applies the knowledge and expertise of its business, scientific and technical teams to successfully develop autologous and allogeneic products across multiple cell-based technology platforms from start to finish.

Cognate is supported by leading shareholder EW Healthcare Partners, as well as Medivate Partners, Blackrock, and a Middle East Sovereign Wealth Fund who continue supporting the business and its expansion activities.  

www.cognatebioservices.com 

About Cobra Biologics

Cobra Biologics, a Cognate BioServices company, is a leading international gene therapy CDMO with GMP approved facilities in both the UK and Sweden, each with an extensive track record in serving our global client base. Cobra offers a broad range of integrated and stand-alone services for both the clinical and commercial gene therapy market. As a trusted provider and a key partner in the drug development and commercialization process, Cobra takes pride in manufacturing excellence and comprehensive range of services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. For more information please visit: www.cobrabio.com

For more information, please contact James Wilkerson at jwilkerson@cognatebioservices.com

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cognate-bioservices-announces-the-appointment-of-two-independent-board-members-301115904.html

SOURCE Cognate BioServices