Avacta Group, the UK developer of Affimer biotherapeutics and research reagents, has recruited Philippe Cotrel as Chief Commercial Officer.
Cotrel joins Wetherby-based Avacta from Abcam, where he was Commercial Operations Director. He will lead the Group’s commercial strategy and business development activities, and will drive the commercialisation of the Affimer technology as both research reagents and biotherapeutics.
A protein chemist by training, Cotrel has more than 20 years’ commercial experience in sales, marketing and customer support in the life sciences sector having held senior positions in Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, Oxford Glycosciences, Affymetrix and Abcam. While at Affymetrix, at that time the inventor and market leader of commercial microarrays, Cotrel was appointed General Manager and Vice President of Commercial Operations in Europe.
He joined Abcam in 2008 as Commercial Director and was been responsible for sales and marketing activities.
The appointment of Cotrel completes a five strong Senior Leadership Team which comprises: Amrik Basran (Chief Scientific Officer); Matt Johnson (Chief Technology Officer); Tony Gardiner (Group Chief Financial Officer) and Alastair Smith (Group Chief Executive Officer).
