Adocia, a French biotechnology company that specialises in the development of innovative formulations of already approved therapeutic proteins, has opened a subsidiary in the US called Adocia Incorporated.
The company has appointed Simon Bruce as Chief Medical Officer and Stephen Daly as US Commercial Lead, who takes charge of business development in the US in addition to US investor relations.
The US is currently the primary market for Adocia's products, which include the BioChaperone pipeline products to improve insulin-based treatments for diabetes, monoclonal antibodies and growth factors for diabetic foot ulcer healing. Last December the company formed an alliance with Eli Lilly to co-develop BioChaperone Lispro, which is one of its products for the treatment of diabetes.
Gérard Soula, CEO of Adocia, said the opening of the US subsidiary is crucial to increase the company's efforts in this priority market. He said Adocia aims to intensify its partnership efforts, build relationships with the main key opinion leaders specialising in the diabetes and wound healing fields and eventually increase links with the US financial community.
Bruce, who originally trained in endocrine clinical research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, has more than 15 years of experience in drug development and registrational drug trials. In his last job at Halozyme Pharmaceuticals, he was Executive Medical Director working on the ultra-rapid insulin programme. He was in charge of the regulatory strategy and led numerous interactions with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Previously at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Bruce was in charge of the Phase III studies and safety analysis in the development in the US of Bydureon, which is a once-weekly GLP-1 analogue injectable formulation.
Stephen Daly
Daly has 24 years of experience in commercialisation and business development for pharmaceutical and biotech products across multiple therapeutic categories. Most recently, he was Vice President of Commercial at Halozyme Therapeutics for its ultra-rapid insulin programme.
Daly also has experience in the diabetes field, including several years at Amylin Pharmaceuticals in marketing and brand leadership for Byetta and Symlin.
