Touchlight appoints SVP, Global Head of Sales

Touchlight, a biotechnology CDMO enabling the development of genetic medicines with its enzymatic doggybone DNA technology, is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Verna McErlane as its SVP, Global Head of Sales.

Verna brings to Touchlight extensive commercial experience in the life science tools and services industry having spent 8 years with Sartorius in a variety of commercial leadership roles, latterly with a particular focus on newly acquired businesses for Upstream workflows. For the past two years, Verna held the post of Global Head of Sales for Advanced Therapies focusing on growing market presence in this rapidly growing field. Prior to Sartorius, Verna held commercial leadership roles in a number of innovative companies, including BioOutsource and Sistemic Ltd.

Verna holds a PhD in Cancer Drug Development from Ulster University exploring the anti-tumour effects of gene therapy approaches.

Verna commented: “I am very excited to join the talented and innovative team of Touchlight. Doggybone DNA is a great technology which can fundamentally make a positive impact on those developing these vital therapies for patients by enabling the GMP production of DNA in an economical, fast and scalable manner.”

Karen Fallen, CEO, said: “We are delighted to have Verna join Touchlight at such a pivotal time in our company’s growth and development. She will be a strong asset leading the sales team and I look forward to seeing her have a transformative impact on our organisation.”

Access a PDF version of the press release here

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About Touchlight

Touchlight is a privately-owned CDMO based in London, U.K., focused on the provision of DNA services and manufacture of enzymatically produced doggybone DNA (dbDNA™) to enable the development of genetic medicines. Touchlight provide rapid, enzymatic DNA development and manufacturing for all advanced therapy production, including mRNA, viral and non-viral gene therapy and DNA API. dbDNA is a minimal, linear, covalently closed structure, which eliminates bacterial sequences. Touchlight’s revolutionary enzymatic production platform enables unprecedented speed, scale, and the ability to target genes with a size and complexity that is impossible with current technologies. Clients can be supported from pre-clinical through development and supply, to licencing and tech transfer for use in-house.

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