13 January 2020 - - Swiss life sciences company Selexis SA has promoted Yemi Onakunle, PhD, MBA, to the position of chief business officer, the company said.

In this new and expanded role, Dr. Onakunle will relocate to Selexis headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and will lead all corporate and business development activities, reporting directly to chief executive officer Igor Fisch, PhD.

Dr. Onakunle joined Selexis in 2012 as vice president of strategic and market development. In 2019, he was promoted to senior vice president, licensing and business development, leading a team of professionals in the Northeast and Western regions of the US.

Under his leadership, Selexis has successfully partnered with many companies in the US territory.

Before joining Selexis, Dr. Onakunle was director of commercial development at Diosynth RTP Inc. and associate director of business development at Lonza Custom Manufacturing organizations that provide process development and cGMP manufacturing services in mammalian and microbial production platforms.

More recently, he was head of sales and marketing at Bachem Americas Inc., a contract manufacturing organization that focuses on peptides and complex organic molecules.

In these positions, he has had a strong record of consistently growing the customer base and sales and expanding product offerings into new markets.

Dr. Onakunle is a member of the board of directors of VLP Biotech Inc, a vaccine development company that is based in San Diego, CA and has been a business advisor to several biopharmaceutical and drug delivery companies.

Educated in the UK, he holds a PhD from the University of Kent at Canterbury and an MBA from Imperial College Management School.

Selexis' proprietary SUREtechnology Platform facilitates the rapid, stable, and cost-effective production of virtually any recombinant protein and provides seamless integration of the biologics development continuum, spanning discovery to commercialisation.

Selexis SA, a JSR Life Sciences company, is a leader in cell line development with best-in-class modular technology and highly specialized solutions that enable the life sciences industry to rapidly discover, develop and commercialize innovative medicines and vaccines.

Its global partners are utilizing Selexis technologies to advance more than 125 drug products in clinical development and the manufacture of six commercial products.

As part of a drug development process, the company's technologies shorten development timelines and reduce manufacturing risks.