Brussels, Brussels Region, Belgium
Current position: Senior Director, SRA, Toxicology Europe, The Coca-Cola Compagny Career overview: • International experience (UK, Belgium and France): - 6 months in Food/Drink industry - 4.5 years in cosmetic industry - >16 years in pharmaceutical industry - 5 years in academic laboratories (PhD in UK) • Leader and management of projects, collaborations and teams as a direct line manager & in a matrix environment with the supervision of teams in Europe, US and Asia • Drug/cosmetic development (screening, investigative toxicology, mechanistic studies): selection of the most promising compounds using in silico/vitro/vivo tools. Implementation of safety, derisking strategies & risk mitigation plans. • Close collaborations with medicinal/cosmetic chemists, DMPK collaborators, regulatory toxicologists, pharmacologists, clinicians, … though multiple projects • Good understanding of scientific & regulatory constraints • Dossier submission to authorities: defense of ingredients and registration of new cosmetic ingredients to support business • Participation in international scientific initiatives and consortia • 35 publications, 5 book chapters, 27 oral presentations (since 2009)
• Develop toxicological testing strategies to mitigate current risks linked to ingredients, products, and packaging • Develop networks with external scientific experts, government agencies, NGOs and other stakeholders on issues relating to food additives, food safety and toxicology • Lead and engage in industry/trade associations and food standards bodies to advocate industry/company positions • Provide toxicological expertise and guidance to the system to identify solutions to regulatory issues • Support to Innovation for new ingredients, products, or packaging • Provide leadership to external stakeholders such as global food and beverage industry groups
• Transversal & direct reporting of collaborators at worldwide level (US: 12, Asia: 7 and France: 20) • Strategies and in vitro testing on raw materials & finished products: support to projects & development of new approaches • Critical analysis of toxicity data (Hazard) from multiple sources including screening, mechanistic and regulatory toxicity studies (GLP): AEL, NOAEL, POD (BMDL) • Risk Assessment: margin of safety (MOS), threshold of toxicological concern (TTC), derivation of toxicity reference values [no significant risk level (NSRL), tolerable daily intake (TDI), derived no-effect level (DNEL), ...] • Mechanistic and Investigative Toxicology: derisking strategies for key compounds associated with unfavourable safety profiles; elucidating of mechanisms of actions • Alternative methods testing: eye and skin toxicity, genotoxicity, allergies (type I and IV), systemic toxicity, exposure, … in collaboration with L’Oréal Advanced Research • Development of worldwide consistency among the different regions (Europe, US, Asia): safety strategies taking into account regional regulatory constraints in Europe (REACH, CLP, CPR), China (CSAR) & US (FDA) to anticipate impact on cosmetics ingredients and to implement internal and external action plans • Ingredient defence management: strategic decisions, review of safety dossiers, submissions to authorities • Registration of new ingredients: submissions of dossiers to authorities including dossiers based on New Alternative Methodologies (NAMs) and New Generation Risk Assessment (e.g. Bioactivity exposure ratio (BER) based on Pharmacological Profiling, Cell Stress Panel, Toxicogenomics and physiologically-based kinetics (PBK) approaches. • Due diligence activities
Master II students, Biodiversity-Ecosystems-Ecotoxicology
Market research, Business Insight, IP intelligence, exclusively for the Life Sciences Community. Support for scientific and strategic orientation.
Associate Director: July 2011 - May 2018 Principal Scientist: July 2007 - June 2011 • Management & leadership: supervision of scientists including PhD with Post Doc experience, Master of Science, technicians and trainees • Involvement in strategic decisions: genotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, liver toxicity, formation of reactive metabolites, 3D models, derisking strategy. Leading the implementation of the safety strategies. • Discovery Target Group: review of pharmacology targets • Reactive Metabolite Advisory Group: advises provided to projects • Mechanistic investigations: in vitro and in vivo studies to derisk flags and test hypothesis • Implementation of in silico/vitro/vivo assays to select the most promising compounds: - Silico: Derek, Leadscope, eTox, internal in silico tools - Vitro: cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, phospholipidosis - Investigative and early in vivo toxicology - Toxicogenomic investigations (vitro and vivo) - SAR activities to design safer compounds • Review of regulatory documents (e.g. investigative brochure) • Drug development (mainly NCEs): - Therapeutic areas: CNS (pain, epilepsy, Parkinson, cognition, …), inflammation, oncology - Safety representative and mechanistic investigator in diverse projects - In-licensing and due diligence activities - Interaction with project leaders, medicinal chemists, toxicologists, pharmacologists, legal, finance, … • Toxicity Target Evaluation: evaluation of potential toxicity issues linked to pharmacology target; document covering various sections including: 1) Biology (gene, protein, function, pathway, expression), 2) Human genetic, 3) Transgenic animal genotype and phenotype (KO, mutants), 4) In vivo and in vitro pharmacological models, 5) Potential safety risks, 6) Competitive intelligence • Cell therapy project (external collaboration): differentiation of human liver stem cells into hepatocytes for intraportal injection into patients. In vitro ADMET investigations
Senior Scientist: July 2004 - June 2007 Research Scientist: Jan 2002 - June 2004 • Selection of the most promising compounds: - Strategic and scientific coordination of toxicogenomic studies - Hepatotoxicity evaluation using in vivo rat liver samples, > 50 studies; Agilent and Affymetrix arrays - Use of ToxFx (Entelos/Affymetrix) platform: gene expression biomarker signatures - Phospholipidosis screen validated in cells to screen compounds at early stage of drug development