Strategic Appointments Keep Company on Growth Path

Ion channel CRO and drug discovery company Metrion Biosciences has announced the promotion of Andrew Southan to Chief Operating Officer and the appointment of James Beaumont as Head of Business Development.

Beaumont has over 20 years’ sales, business development and marketing experience within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector and a knowledge of senior level contacts across Europe, North America and New Zealand. James initially trained as a chemist and obtained both his honours degree and MSc from the University of Sheffield. He has successfully managed multimillion sales budgets within the CRO life sciences sector.

appointment of Andrew Southan to the post of Chief Operating Officer continues the company’s growth strategy, initiated in 2016, of providing clients with outstanding quality drug discovery services. Andrew joined Metrion in October 2016 and has over 25 years’ experience within the life sciences sector, including 14 years managing CRO services.

Dr Keith McCullagh, Chairman of Metrion Biosciences said: “Andy Southan has made a major contribution to Metrion since joining the business last year as Head of Commercial Operations. Andy’s promotion to COO reflects Metrion’s rapid growth and the confidence we have in his management capabilities.

At the same time, we are delighted to welcome James Beaumont to Metrion. He brings a wealth of experience from senior roles in sales and business development at a variety of life science CRO companies, including Evotec, Aptuit and New Zealand Pharmaceuticals.”

James Beaumont commented: “I look forward to contributing to Metrion’s future growth. The field of ion channel drug discovery is in its infancy and there is a major opportunity to bring the Company’s technical leadership in this field to the international drug discovery and safety testing markets.”