IPM Announces New Board Chair, Board Members and Executive Vice President for Product Development

Incoming Chair Peter B. Corr and Board members Georgina Caswell and Florence Manguyu offer expertise in pharmaceutical discovery and development, pediatrics and HIV prevention advocacy; Executive Vice President for Product Development Brid Devlin brings expertise in formulation development for global markets. 

SILVER SPRING, Md. (January 20, 2011) — The International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) today announced the appointment of Dr. Peter B. Corr as chair of its Board of Directors as well as new Board members Ms. Georgina Caswell and Dr. Florence W. Manguyu. Dr. Brid Devlin has been appointed executive vice president for Product Development.

Incoming Chair Dr. Peter B. Corr is co-founder and managing general partner for Celtic Therapeutics LLLP, a private equity firm that acquires products in early development and develops the products usually to approval. Dr. Corr retired from Pfizer Inc. as senior vice president for Science and Technology in 2006. He was previously president of Worldwide Development at Pfizer. Prior to joining Pfizer in 2000, Dr. Corr was president of Pharmaceutical Research and Development at Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis and before that, he served as senior vice president, Discovery Research, at Monsanto/Searle. He spent 18 years as a professor in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Biology at Washington University in St. Louis. His research has been published in more than 160 scientific manuscripts, and he holds a doctorate from Georgetown University School of Medicine and Dentistry. Dr. Corr has served on IPM’s Board of Directors for more than three years. He replaces outgoing Chair Dr. Alex Coutinho, executive director of the Infectious Disease Institute at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. 

“It’s a great honor to follow Alex Coutinho as IPM’s chair of the Board,” Dr. Corr said. “This is an unprecedented time of exciting new opportunities in the microbicide field. I am committed to working with the Board of Directors and management to turn this new science and global opportunity into products that will save lives.”

Ms. Georgina Caswell has dedicated her career to working with people living with HIV. She is program officer at the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), a Dutch-based international NGO. Before joining GNP+, Ms. Caswell was policy and community engagement officer at the African HIV Policy Network, a national African-led umbrella organization of community-based organizations in the United Kingdom. Ms. Caswell will bring the important voice of young women to IPM’s board. For women ages 15-44, AIDS is now the leading killer globally. 

Dr. Florence Manguyu holds a master’s degree (M.Med) in pediatrics as well as a certificate in tropical medicine from the University of Nairobi in Kenya, and a bachelor’s degree in medicine and surgery (MB, ChB) from Makerere University in Uganda. As senior policy advisor at the East African Regional Office of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), she is a liaison to ministries of Health, Foreign Affairs and Special Programmes, which handle HIV/AIDS issues. Dr. Manguyu is also senior consultant pediatrician in Clinical Practice based at the Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) in Nairobi.

Incumbent members of the Board of Directors include Dr. Eunice Brookman-Amissah, vice president for Africa, Ipas; Eveline Herfkens, executive coordinator for the UN Millennium Development Goals Campaign; Dr. David Kessler, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine and former head of the US Food and Drug Administration; Dr. Maureen Lewis, advisor, Research Department, World Bank; Totsie Memela-Khambula, chief executive officer, Eduloan; Anjali Nayyar, vice president, emerging economies, Global Health Strategies; Dr. Albert Profy, senior director for program management, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals; Dr. Anita Sandström, Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs; Anadi Yuvaraj, Asia Pacific regional coordinator for the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS; and Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, CEO of IPM.

As executive vice president for Product Development, Dr. Brid Devlin brings a wealth of experience in directing formulation development of solid and semi-solid dosage forms and packaging development of therapeutic compounds for global pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis. Dr. Devlin has also worked as research group leader at Biosyn, and as a research associate at McNeil Consumer Healthcare. Before assuming her new role, she served as IPM’s director of formulation technology, directing formulation and manufacturing sciences of vaginal rings, gels and films. Dr. Devlin holds a bachelor’s degree in biology, chemistry and mathematics from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and a PhD in pharmaceutics from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.

“We at IPM are delighted to have our new Board chair and members join us at this important time as IPM plans the initiation of its Phase III program for the dapivirine vaginal ring,” Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, chief executive officer at IPM, said. “These outstanding individuals bring great strength and depth to our Board, as does Dr. Devlin in her new role leading our Product Development team.”

Contacts:
Larry Miller (Global), lmiller@ipmglobal.org, +1 301 608 4267
Leonard Solai (Africa), lsolai@ipmglobal.org, +27 (84) 660 6776
Holly Seltzer (US), hseltzer@ipmglobal.org, +1 301 608 4277

About IPM:

IPM is a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing innovative HIV prevention products and making them available to women worldwide. IPM has offices in the United States, South Africa and Belgium. Please visit www.IPMglobal.org