New Executive Director for MeTA

Posted on 16 February 2009

Brian Elliott has joined MeTA as Executive Director. With 25 years experience in senior management positions in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, he has worked for many years in developing country and emerging market settings in the private and public sectors.

In the early part of his career, having spent 8 years with the Industrial Development Authority of Ireland based in Dublin and Paris working on the attraction of new pharmaceutical industries into Ireland he was seconded to the Lesotho National Development Corporation where he spent two years in Maseru establishing the Investment Promotion Department in the organisation. Here he developed an active interest in developing country issues which he has maintained throughout his career. In 1981 he became Managing Director of a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Ireland, subsequently sold to Johnson and Johnson whereupon he was recruited by Johnson and Johnson to start up the operations of Janssen Pharmaceutica NV in The Peoples’ Republic of China. Over three years he established their business and negotiated two major manufacturing Joint Ventures with the Chinese Authorities.

Brian then returned to Ireland to become a director of a large generics pharmaceutical manufacturer with a production plant in Ireland and also became International Sales Director of the UK parent, Norton Healthcare. He held these positions from 1985 to 1990. In 1990 Brian rejoined Janssen and from 1990 to 1995 he was International Trade Director of the company based in Belgium with responsibility for all company activities – production, sales and marketing, finance and clinical development projects in Africa, Middle East and West Asia. In this role he was asked to advise the WHO Global AIDS programme on the issues around the prescription and distribution of HIV and AIDS drugs in Developing Countries.

In 1996 Brian joined with ex Janssen colleagues in a Belgian based biotech company Tibotec-Virco, and was responsible for all the commercial activities of the company, holding the position of Senior Vice President, Corporate Alliances and Business Development from its start-up until its acquisition by Johnson and Johnson in 2002. Tibotec developed two antiretroviral compounds and grew to employ over 500 people in locations in US, UK, Belgium and Ireland. Johnson and Johnson launched one of these compounds Prezista in the US market in July 2006.

From 1995 to 2000 alongside his role in Tibotec Virco, Brian also undertook several international consultancy assignments and became well known in the HIV field where he was the UNAIDS negotiator with the pharmaceutical industry to address the issue of access to Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) therapy for patients in developing countries. He also designed and implemented the UNAIDS
Drug Access Initiative and piloted the project in Uganda, Vietnam, Cote d’Ivoire and Chile. He successfully engaged all the leading providers of antiretrovirals (ARV) in the project over a four year period.

Brian also carried out an assessment of the European Commission HIV/AIDS Task Force on behalf of HERA, an important Belgian based healthcare Consulting Group. Brian has subsequently acted as a Consultant on behalf of several leading ARV companies in addressing issues in the context of developing countries and emerging markets, specifically in Sub Saharan and South Africa and in 1997 he founded Axios International Consultants, and Chaired the Board of the company until 2004. Axios is a leading designer and implementer of HIV intervention projects in developing countries on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry. He was appointed to the Danish Government’s Think Tank established to address the Danish response to the spread of AIDS in developing countries.

Brian’s considerable international pharma business and management experience, together with his extensive network of senior contacts in the pharmaceutical industry, governments in developing countries and international NGOs provides him with the ideal background to fulfil his exciting and challenging role as Executive Director of the MeTA project.