Dominic Carolan to take over as chief executive of Nibrt
The National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (Nibrt) said today that Dominic Carolan is to succeed Dr Reg Shaw as its CEO.
Shaw has led the centre for the last two years.
Carolan has previously held senior roles in Mallinckrodt (Dublin) and Genzyme, where he was senior vice president of manufacturing. Most recently he headed up Sanofi’s global network of sterile injectable lyophilisation sites.
He has also led the start-up of two pharma and biopharma facilities in Ireland and, according to Nibrt, has a track record in operations leadership and in attracting and developing the talent required to deliver long term success. He’s a chemical engineering graduate of UCD and was chairman of PharmaChemical Ireland from 2008 to 2010.
Nibrt also published its 2014 annual report today in which it detailed significant growth across industry, research and training activities for the year.
The centre said it delivered over 14,000 learning days for 3,300 trainees from industry, academia and government agencies during the year. Twenty-three percent of the training was with international clients who travelled to Nibrt to access its state-of–the-art pilot plant facilities.
The centre said up to 65pc of participants on its Springboard and Skillnets programmes secured employment. And it provided specialist training to staff from 24 international regulatory agencies who attended the institute in 2014.
The centre said 2014 was a year of rapid growth for its research which received €3.8m in cash contributions from industry to support collaborative research projects between 2011 and 2014.
Nibrt’s principal investigators secured a number of grant awards, including an SFI Spokes grant award in collaboration with Dublin City University and Trinity College Dublin, co-ordinated through the Synthesis and Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre (SSPC) and involving collaboration with major biopharma companies operating in Ireland, including Pfizer Grange Castle, BioMarin International Ltd., Sanofi-Genzyme, Eli Lilly, Allergen Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Biologics and Merck. Other awards received by Nibrt represent collaborations with other biopharma companies and instrument manufacturers. The centre said the high level of industry involvement in these awards “is testament to the alignment of research performed at Nibrt to address key challenges encountered by companies during the development and manufacture of complex biopharmaceutical medicines”.
Nibrt hosted over 30 events, workshops, seminars and conferences in 2014 with 1,300 delegates attending. In addition, Nibrt launched the Biocluster at CareerZoo.
The centre said all of this activity created a very strong fiscal performance where 88pc of costs were covered by its income, “which is an exceptional result for a research and training facility, as compared to any national or international benchmark”.
