Biotech firm Redx Pharma has appointed a new chief executive to help “re-launch” the company after it was placed in administration last year.
Lisa Anson has been president of AstraZeneca UK since 2012 and brings significant leadership experience to the role. Over a 20-year career with the company, she has held a variety of senior management roles at AstraZeneca in both the US and the UK.
Anson will take up her new role as CEO on 1 June 2018. Iain Ross, currently executive chairman, will revert to being non-executive chairman on the same day.
“Following the events of 2017 Lisa has been tasked by the board to lead the re-launch of the company and to take the steps necessary to build a substantial biotech company built upon an innovative science base, selectively acquiring additional assets, if appropriate,” Ross said.
“Lisa is a consummate business professional, who brings a wealth of relevant experience from the international pharmaceutical and biotech sector.
“I am confident that, as CEO, she is the right person to grow this company into a very exciting and meaningful entity that has the potential to create both important new medicines for patients and generate significant value for shareholders.”
Administrators were called into Alderley Park-based Redx in May 2017 over an outstanding £2m loan to Liverpool City Council.
The company, which moved to Cheshire from Liverpool in 2016, resumed trading on the AIM market late last year with a reshuffled management team.
“I am incredibly excited by the opportunity to lead Redx on the next stage of its journey to be a leading UK biotech company,” Anson said.
“The team have impressed me and the company now has a clear focus on some very exciting areas of science in both fibrosis and cancer where there are a number of ongoing programmes. I look forward to working with the team and the Board to build and develop Redx to its full potential.”