New Leadership Team and Appointments

IVI is pleased to announce key hires and appointments. These recent additions will re-establish IVI’s executive management and scientific leadership. These individuals also bring seniority and years of experience in vaccine-related research and management to IVI, and they are instrumental in rebuilding IVI’s scientific leadership and strategic renewal.

 

Mr. Philip Driver, Deputy Director General (DDG) of Finance & Administration.
Mr. Driver oversees IVI’s finance and operations and is a member of the executive leadership team. As a finance professional with extensive global pharmaceuticals experience, Mr. Driver has served in increasingly senior finance positions during a 25 year career with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Most recently, he was Senior Vice President Finance and Global Lead Analytics in London, UK. Prior, he held positions as Senior Vice President Finance of Global Consumer Healthcare and spent 6 years as Finance Head of European Pharmaceuticals. He has also been responsible for finance in GSK’s Asia Pacific and Latin American operations, after commencing his pharmaceutical career with GSK in Canada. Mr. Driver was born in England and has lived in England, Canada, U.S., Mexico as well as 5 years in Asia during his career. He holds a C.P.A. from Canada and an A.C.A from U.K.

 

Dr. Jean-Louis Excler, Head of Clinical Development.
Dr. Excler leads the Clinical Development group at IVI. Dr. Excler has been a Senior Consultant, HIV Vaccine Clinical Development for the U.S. Military HIV Research Program, and since July, 2015, a consultant for IVI. Previously, he served in senior positions at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the U.S. Military HIV Research Program, and Pasteur Merieux Connaught (now Sanofi Pasteur). He brings more than 30 years of knowledge, expertise, and experience in vaccines and vaccination for developing countries. He was a resident doctor in Africa and supported immunization programs for children while with UNICEF. He has extensive experience in clinical strategy development and worked on the Phase III trial for the HIV vaccine in Thailand, as well as experience in regulatory affairs, particularly in India and Thailand. Dr. Excler has an M.D. with a National Doctorate of Medicine from the University of Lyon, and a Masters in Human Biology/ Parasitology.

 

Dr. Julia A. Lynch, Head of Program Management.
Dr. Lynch will head IVI’s new Program Management group, effective May 6, 2016. Prior to IVI, she served 29 years in the U.S. Army. Dr. Lynch first served as Director of the Division of Viral Diseases at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research during which significant studies were conducted for Japanese encephalitis, adenovirus and dengue vaccines. She was appointed Director of the Military Infectious Disease Research Program at Fort Detrick, Maryland, a product development program targeting vaccines against malaria, dengue and enteric pathogens, as well as new anti-parasitic drugs and infectious disease diagnostics for resource limited settings. She later became the Science Director for the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences in Bangkok, Thailand, where she was responsible for activities spanning eight countries in South-East Asia that included biosurveillance, basic science, pre-clinical studies and human clinical trials. Dr. Lynch received her M.D. from Columbia University and completed a Pediatric Residency and Infectious Disease fellowship at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

 

Dr. Viliam Pavliak, Head of Vaccine Development.
Dr. Pavliak oversees IVI’s Vaccine Development group. He was at Pfizer Worldwide Vaccine Research and Development where he was Director of the Characterization Group responsible for the characterization of subunit vaccines and the development of analytical assays for release of conjugate vaccines and intermediates. Dr. Pavliak has extensive experience and knowledge in vaccine research and development. At Wyeth Vaccine Research, he served in increasingly senior positions, becoming the Associate Director/Head of the Conjugation and Carbohydrate Chemistry Group. He worked as Principal Research Scientist at Nabi and Univax Biologics Inc., both in Rockville, Maryland, USA. Dr. Pavliak did his postdoctoral research at the National Research Council, Institute of Biological Sciences in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and at the NIDDK-Section of Carbohydrates at the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Pavliak is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of GlycoNet (Canadian Glycomics Network, Alberta, Canada). He has a Ph.D and M.Sc. in Biochemistry from the Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, Slovakia

 

In addition, there have been two critical appointments on the executive leadership team: Dr. Laura Digilio as Deputy Director General of Development & Delivery and Dr. In-Kyu Yoon as Deputy Director General of Science. Dr. Digilio previously served as IVI's Acting Head of Development & Delivery. As Deputy Director General of Development & Delivery, Dr. Digilio oversees IVI’s Clinical Development, Regulatory, Epidemiology, Policy & Economic Research, and Biostatistics and Data Management groups, as well as the Hepatitis E Program. Dr. Yoon joined IVI in August, 2015 as Director of the Dengue Vaccine Initiative (DVI). As Deputy Director General of Science, Dr. Yoon oversees IVI’s Clinical Research Labs, and Vaccine Development and Quality Management groups and leads DVI and our new MERS-CoV Program. For more information, please visit www.ivi.intfor their bio-sketches.