Exothera apppoints new business officer

Exothera, a CDMO specializing in gene therapy, vaccines, and oncolytic viruses, has appointed Darren Leva as Chief Business Officer.

Leva’s extensive commercial experience in biotherapeutics CDMOs will further extend Exothera’s business and commercial capability across existing and brand-new markets.

Leva brings 20 years of broad commercial expertise to Exothera from a range of experiences with CDMOs, therapeutics, and software companies. Most recently, he held leadership positions in Cell and Gene Therapy at Thermo Fisher Scientific while also being deeply involved in the manufacturing response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As Head of Commercial Operations, he helped build and lead both GMP Plasmid and GMP Cell Therapy businesses.

Prior to joining Thermo Fisher, Leva held various commercial roles at several start-ups and growth-stage companies, including IntroMaps, Althea Technologies (now Ajinomoto), Cerimon Pharmaceuticals, and Seven Bridges Genomics.

In his new role at Exothera, Leva will leverage his experience in scaling cell and gene therapy businesses to help Exothera accelerate its growth in viral vector manufacturing.