New Process Development Services Director appointed at Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Cork site
Thermo Fisher Scientific has appointed Peter McDonald (pictured above) as Process Development Services (PDS) Director at its contract pharmaceutical development and manufacturing campus in Cork. In this role Peter McDonald will focus on further strengthening Thermo Fisher’s Process Development offering, building on the site’s excellent process and analytical technical capabilities, as well as developing the talent onsite to attract new development customers.
He will lead a large team of chemists and analysts whose role will be to develop and optimise novel medicines and improve the chemistry process for existing life-changing medicines treating cancer, diabetes, HIV and more. Peter McDonald, who has a PhD in Chemistry, joined the site in 2000 as a Development Chemist and has held numerous roles over the past 24 years, including head of the Research & Development Pilot Plant and site lead for Project Management.
Peter McDonald said: “I am thrilled to be stepping into the PDS Director role. The chemists and analysts in our state-of-the-art laboratories and production facilities here in Cork work together to improve chemistry processes for customers, and ultimately patients. The team has grown significantly over the past five years to serve a growing portfolio of customers, many of whom are biotechs developing novel chemistries to treat rare diseases. The work is really exciting, the team gain incredible experience and I’m looking forward to building on that success.”
Edel Collins, General Manager of Thermo Fisher’s Cork site, said: “Our PDS team has been an integral part of growth and development of our campus. We hear from customers time and time again that we have a world-class PDS offering and that they really value our partnership in developing and improving their chemistry processes so that medicines can be reliably and safely scaled for large-scale production.
“Peter is a strong leader for our growing PDS team and he will embody our mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer, in his new role.”
Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Cork campus is an active pharmaceutical ingredient development and manufacturing site and is part of its Pharma Services business. The team is expert in taking process chemistry and analytical development from laboratory scale through to clinical and large-scale commercial manufacturing.