Providence Therapeutics announces new chief development officer and new chief medical officer
by CM Staff
mRNA vaccine maker announces the promotion of Natalia Martin Orozco to Chief Development Officer and the hiring of Piyush Patel as Chief Medical Officer.
TORONTO and CALGARY — Providence Therapeutics announces that Natalia Martin Orozco has been promoted to Chief Development Officer and the addition of Piyush Patel as Chief Medical Officer. Providence Therapeutics is a mRNA manufacturer that is developing a made-in-Canada COVID-19 vaccine, PTX-COVID19-B.
“Dr. Martin Orozco’s, work has been nothing short of amazing over this past year. Coordinating multiple sites, managing collaboration partners, overseeing GMP manufacturing and hiring new team members all the while keeping our employees safe and productive in the middle of a pandemic; I truly can’t say enough! I am so pleased to have her join the executive team and look forward to much more success in 2021,” says Brad Sorenson, CEO of Providence Therapeutics, of Dr. Martin Orozco’s promotion.
Dr. Martin Orozco joined Providence in mid-2018 as VP of Drug development. She setup the research and development laboratory at JLABs Toronto and built up the manufacturing capabilities for mRNA lipid nanoparticles focused on our Personalized Cancer Vaccine program. By the end of 2019, Natalia’s team was producing mRNA vaccine lots for pre-clinical safety studies and was ready to move into a GMP manufacturing for Phase I trial.
Dr. Patel, a Clinical Immunologist has over two decades of experience in designing and running hundreds of large and small clinical trials in many therapeutic areas including infectious disease and allergy vaccines. Dr. Patel has assisted many biotech companies in formulating clinical development plans and in interactions with regulatory agencies including the FDA, he has also presented at FDA advisory committee meetings.
“I am very excited to join the Providence team and help bring this essential vaccine to the market” says Dr. Patel.
“Designing and running a COVID vaccine clinical trial with the goal of delivering an essential vaccine as soon as possible, without compromising public safety, is no small task. Dr. Patel’s decades of experience in managing large international multi-site clinical trials through all clinical stages is exactly what Providence needs at this critical moment,” says Sorenson on the hire of Dr. Patel.
