Polyphor appoints Gökhan Batur as Chief Commercial Officer
Polyphor AG (SIX: POLN), a clinical stage, Swiss biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of antibiotics and immuno-oncology compounds today announced the appointment of Gökhan Batur to the newly created position of Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). With over 14 years of healthcare industry experience, he joins the organization from MSD (known as Merck & Co. Inc. in the US and Canada), most recently serving as Executive Director, Global Brand Leader, Antibiotics, working in Switzerland and the US.
Mr. Batur, who joins effective June 3rd, will be responsible for leading all commercial activities, including market preparation for our lead antibiotic murepavadin and our immuno-oncology compound balixafortide. As a member of the executive management he will lead Polyphor's Commercial activities, as well as the Business Development & Licensing team.
"I'm very pleased to welcome Gökhan to Polyphor as we look forward to key milestones in our antibiotic and immuno-oncology programs and continue building our team for the future," says Giacomo Di Nepi, Chief Executive Officer of Polyphor. "Gökhan's deep cross departmental and commercial leadership experience including launching multiple antibiotics in the entire world will be essential as we start the market preparation for our products, and we build the late-stage development and commercial capabilities needed to become a sustainable, multi-product biopharmaceutical company."
Mr. Batur has held positions of increasing responsibility at MSD, most recently serving as Executive Director, Global Brand Leader, Antibiotics responsible for leading the global commercial strategy and execution for the entire Merck antibiotics portfolio managing multiple in-line, launch and pipeline products and sales of ~2 billion dollars. Prior to this role he was Executive Director, Global Brand Leader, Gram Negative Antibiotics. Previous roles at MSD included Executive Director, Hospital Acute Care Franchise for Emerging Markets and China and, before, he held positions both at regional and country level in marketing and sales including regional marketing leader for Hospital Products and Oncology in the EEMEA region. He received his BS in Management Information Systems from Bosphorus University, Istanbul.
