THE BIOCELECT TEAM

Karl Herz
Managing Director 

Karl has over 25 years of varied experience in the pharmaceutical industry – from the lab to senior management.

He has extensive marketing and commercial experience with major companies such as GSK, Sanofi and Sigma Pharmaceuticals, as well as start-ups like Generic Health; a subsidiary of Lupin Pharmaceuticals.

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Karl is also a Director of Biocelect's sister company; Biointelect.
Karl has a wide experience across a number of therapeutic areas, including oncology, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. 

He graduated with a degree in Biomedicine from UTS, majoring in biochemistry and microbiology and a post graduate certificate in marketing.

Jennifer Herz

Director 

Jennifer Herz is the Managing Director of Biocelect's sister company; Biointelect, which she founded in 2011 to provide strategic commercialisation services to the biopharmaceutical industry. Jennifer has over twenty years commercial, business development and scientific affairs experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and has held a variety of roles with responsibility for Australia, New Zealand and European markets. She was the first Managing Director of Sanofi Pasteur in Australia which was a start-up company and grew significantly over the 6 years of her tenure to be an established major provider of vaccines to the public and private market in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Region.

She has previously served on the Board of Medicines Australia where she led industry discussions with government related to the new funding arrangements for vaccines on the PBAC. She was also active in a variety of European and International Industry Association working groups responsible for liaison with health authorities including European Institutions and the WHO. She is a member of the Accelerate Commercialisation Expert Network, on the Steering Committee of the NHMRC funded Centre of Research Excellence: Policy relevant infectious disease simulation and mathematical modelling (PRISM) and is a member of the Expert Reference Group of the Australian Partnership for Preparedness Research on Infectious Disease Emergencies (APPRISE). Jennifer has an extensive international & local network of industry, policy, scientific and clinical experts across many therapeutic areas and healthcare sectors along with global experience in multiple new product launches and start-ups at all stages of development.

Max Howell

Chief Financial Officer

Max Howell has over fifteen years of pharmaceutical industry experience in senior Finance roles in Australia and Indonesia. Additionally, a similar period in speciality chemicals and wine industry meaning over thirty years’ experience in Finance roles in major multinational companies.

He graduated from the Australian National University in Canberra in Economics majoring in both Economics and Accounting. He is a member of CPA Australia (Certified Practising Accountant).

Max joined RPR in Australia at the time of the Aventis merger with HMR in a project role to rationalise local industrial facilities and helped to establish site sale and establishment of long-term third-party toll manufacturing agreements. Following this role and a period in Commercial Operations in the local Aventis entity Max undertook the CFO role for the Aventis entity in Indonesia, based in Jakarta. He held responsibility over Finance, IS and Distribution as well as dealings with local external shareholders. After the global Sanofi Aventis merger, he took local responsibility for the integration of the two Indonesian businesses including shareholder rationalisation.

Later he returned to Australia as the local Finance and Operations Director for Sanofi’s vaccine business Sanofi Pasteur. Responsible for Finance, IS and Supply Chain, he participated as the Finance and Legal lead on the project team that was successful in negotiating the first Australian sale of Pandemic (H5N1) vaccine to the Australian Government.

In his final roles with Sanofi he focused on project management within Pasteur as well as Sanofi’s animal health business Merial, restructuring finance and supply chain and customer service functions into shared service environments including offshore regional finance centres.

Jeff Hamilton 

National Key Account Manager 

Jeff is an accomplished senior health executive with over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in both the UK and Australia.

He held sales roles at Astra, 3M and Warner Lambert Pharmaceuticals where he gained experience in numerous therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular, respiratory and gastrointestinal health.

During his 18 year tenure at GlaxoSmithKline he worked mostly in the Vaccines Business Unit. As a Travel Vaccines Key Account Manager, he gained experience with corporate travel clinics, surgical and pharmacy wholesalers, primary care and hospital channels. Most recently, he held the role of National Immunisation Program Regional Manager, where he worked in partnership with State and Territory governments, State Based Organisations, Primary Health Networks, Aboriginal Health/Medical Services, Hospitals and other immunisation providers.

He holds a BSc (Business Administration) from the University of Wales.

Crissa Kyriazis

Commercial Project Management Lead

Crissa Kyriazis has over 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience including leadership roles in both complex multinational and privately owned healthcare organisations.

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Crissa started her career in Regulatory Affairs where she managed and led the regulatory approvals for many paediatric and adult vaccines on the NIP, before moving into marketing roles.  Over time, she has led teams in a broad range of functions including regulatory affairs, marketing, sales, business intelligence and analytics, training and multichannel marketing, and has been a member of the executive team for both GSK Australia and Specialised Therapeutics Asia.

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Her experience spans a broad range of therapeutic portfolios including vaccines, oncology, haematology, urology, dermatology and hospital and supportive care, across primary care, speciality care and the Government tender environment. Over time, she has worked closely with Government bodies, professional medical groups, patient organisations and partner companies.

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Crissa’s diverse roles across organisations and her in-depth knowledge of working in, and leading different functions, ensures a true enterprise approach to strategic, corporate and product planning.

Paul Cohen 

Scientific Affairs Consultant 

Qualifications: B.AppSc(Biomedical),GradCertHlthEcon, MAIMS, MASM, ACF, Cert IV (Life Coaching)

Paul has greater than 26 years’ experience in the diagnostics, biotechnology, medical device and bio-pharmaceutical industry. He previously held senior microbiology/infectious disease diagnostic pathology positions for 17 years.

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His expertise spans clinical research, regulatory affairs, pharmacovigilance, training, quality management and process re-engineering for large pharmaceutical companies, biotech and medical device/IVD start-up ventures.

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He has worked for large pharma companies including Wyeth, Merck Sharp and Dohme, Novo Nordisk and Janssen-Cilag; start up ventures: including Sanofi Pasteur and IBAH (the CRO now known as Omnicare) and Columna. He has managed in excess of 20 Phase I-IV clinical and health outcome projects, both locally and globally.  His clinical research therapeutic area expertise includes medical devices-CLASS I-III, IVDs, vaccines and biologicals, anti-infectives, transplantation, antidepressants, rheumatology, oncology, diabetes, respiratory and orthopaedics.

He is the Principal Consultant and Director of his own boutique-consulting practice (since 2000) in clinical research, regulatory, quality and project management. His mission is to assist Australian start-up companies with their clinical research, regulatory and quality strategies and has successfully taken then from concept, through clinical phases to regulatory approval and quality certification.

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Paul has regulatory and compliance expertise in ICH GCP, ISO 14155, ISO 9001, ISO 13485, ISO 17025 (GLP) and GMP.

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He holds an ARCS Certified Fellowship in Clinical Research and is a member of ARCS, AIMS, ASM, RAPS and a Subject Matter Expert for the World Medical Device Organisation.

He is actively involved as a mentor to PhD students as part of the IMNIS (Industry Mentoring Network in STEM) partnering with MTP Connect for the past 3 years.

He helped develop the (MHTI) Master of Health Technology Innovation post-graduate course at Sydney University/Charles Perkins Centre and lectures on regulatory/quality topics each year.

Ashleigh Prest 

Senior Associate 

Ashleigh Prest holds a Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Engineering (Honours) from the University of Adelaide. She has a broad range of experience across Market Access and Business Development, Regulatory Affairs and Project Management - particularly within start-up and early stage organisations. This includes new product planning activities across a broad range of therapeutic areas where Ashleigh has particular expertise in product positioning and assessment of treatment algorithms,  forecast development, product feasibility assessment, market assessment and competitor analysis. She is also proficient in key strategic activities such as stakeholder mapping, the development and coordination of Advisory Boards and Project Management.

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Ashleigh is especially passionate about driving positive patient outcomes via healthcare innovations and in 2017 was the inaugural recipient of the ARCS Katrina Campion Scholarship for Developing Leaders.

Marina Van Der Merwe 

Senior Associate 

Marina van der Merwe has over 15 years of scientific, project management and commercialisation experience in the Applied Sciences Sector, operating in a cross-functional consortium of research institutes, academia, pharma, government agencies and non-for-profit organisations.

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As a specialist organic chemist, she led pharmaceutical development projects from discovery to commercialization and contributed to several granted patents in the area of respiratory, male health and infectious diseases. She has also worked in fields of inflammation, oncology and gastroenterology.

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Formally trained in quality assurance, Marina played an integral part in the implementation of ISO9001 standard, QMS and GLP/GMP compliance of the National Drug Development platform facilities and Clinical supplies unit within Biosciences Unit of CSIR (South Africa). She has also led the post-market product quality investigations for a wide range of pharmaceutical preparations.

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With the current knowledge of the international regulatory environments for pharmaceutical products, medical devices and cosmetics, Marina has wide experience in preparation of technical files, product dossiers, medical writing, and regulatory strategy.

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Marina’s post-industrial PhD project focused on multi-level molecular modelling for fast tracking of early stage leads with best suited properties for the application. The learnings from this study led to several successful projects in the area of application of smart drug-delivery technologies for drug repurposing and patent lifetime extension.

Lena Miloradovic 

Project Management Consultant 

Lena Miloradovic has over 25 years of project management experience in the biotech industry. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP)® with the Project Management Institute USA and holds a BSc degree in Biological Science.

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A specialist in the program management of vaccine development, she held senior roles in project management at CSL Research and Development (R&D) for over 20 years involving liaison with global functions and external organisations for a range of developmental vaccines. Her operational experience including manufacturing and quality, has provided a solid background for management of late-stage R&D vaccine development projects. 

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Highlights of Lena’s career include the internationalisation of BioCSL influenza vaccines in the U.S. and Europe and achievement of milestones in product development studies and clinical trials for early-stage CSL R&D vaccines.  Lena has headed up program management departments and contributed to the establishment of in-house program management offices.

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She has recently worked with small biotech companies, assisting them with management of R&D product development, program management and establishment of quality management systems.

Emily Herz

Territory Manager 

Emily Herz joined Biocelect in 2020 in a customer support, new product planning role and sales position. She also manages marketing and website development. She has a strong customer service mind-set and a broad working knowledge of Biocelect operations.

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Prior to this Emily spent 4 years in retail pharmacy and 3 years at MECCA Brands, where she was responsible for customer service, managing stock and merchandising. Emily speaks French fluently, has creative flair and is also a qualified makeup artist.

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Emily brings her organisational skills and health care sector knowledge to support both internal and external customers at Biocelect. She is passionate about small business and building pathways to patients for new products in Australia.