Sensorion, John Furey
French biopharmaceutical Sensorion announced the appointment of John Furey, former COO of Spark Therapeutics, as an independent member of its board of directors.
According to the company, the appointment will be effective by the next meeting of its board of directors this month.
Furey resigned from Spark at the end of December 2018. During his two-year service as the company’s COO, he led the launch of Spark’s Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl), as it became the first gene therapy to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In his role as Spark’s COO, Furey was responsible for global commercial operations, medical affairs, technology development and technical operations.
Before joining Spark, Furey was SVP and head of global operations for Baxalta, and also spent two years as general manager of Pfizer’s vaccine business in China.
Chairman of Sensorion board, Patrick Langlois, commented on the appointment by saying that it is ‘very timely’ considering the company’s stage of development, as Sensorion currently aims to advance its gene therapy portfolio for inner ear disorders.
Apart from his role at Sensorion, Furey is also currently a non-executive director of T-cell therapy developer Adaptimmune.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated John Furey worked at the FDA, this has been removed.
