Alchemia appoints two new board members

Alchemia (ASX:ACL) has appointed Dr Susan Kelley and Nathan Drona to its board as non-executive directors.

Both appointees have taken up their positions effective immediately, the company announced today.

Kelley is an experienced pharmaceutical company executive specialising in oncology. She has held roles including Vice President of Cancer Drug Development at Bayer HealthCare and Bayer-Schering Pharma, Chief Medical Officer for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation/Consortium and fellow at Harvard Medical School’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Kelley was a member of Alchemia subsidiary Audeo Oncology’s board through 2012.

Drona has had a 15-year career in international investment banking, most recently as a Managing Director of Challiss. He has previously served as Chairman of Avexa (ASX:AVX).

Alchemia Chairman Dr Mel Bridges said the company made the appointments as part of an effort to restructure the board to account for the growing importance of the North American and European markets to its operations.

“These US appointments will substantially assist our endeavour to position Alchemia Limited and Audeo as global biopharma companies, with a solid presence in North America and Europe,” Dr Bridges said.

The company now has five non-executive directors on its board.

Alchemia is attempting to spin off its Audeo Oncology business into a separately listed unit. The company was late last year forced to call off an attempt to demerge the company and list it in the US, citing a lack of interest from investors.

But the company this month revealed that it hasn’t given up on the plan to “pursue the independence of its oncology subsidiary.”

Alchemia shares were trading 2.78% lower at $0.350 as of around 3 pm on Friday.