TURKU, FINLAND: Faron Pharmaceuticals Ltd announced the appointment of Juho Jalkanen, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Operating Officer of the Company.
Dr. Jalkanen will continue to be based in Turku, Finland and his appointment is effective immediately.
In his new role, Dr. Jalkanen will lead business strategy and daily operations for Faron Pharmaceuticals. This includes oversight of academic and industry partnerships, resource prioritization and allocation, chemistry, manufacturing and controls, supply chain and driving performance measures.
His priority will be the accelerated development of bexmarilimab, Faron’s wholly owned, novel precision cancer immunotherapy candidate. Bexmarilimab is currently in development as a potential monotherapy in patients with solid tumors. Faron is also advancing plans to study bexmarilimab in the neoadjuvant setting, in combination with checkpoint inhibitors and as a treatment for hematological malignancies.
“Dr. Jalkanen is an experienced biopharmaceutical industry executive with extensive leadership experience across key functional areas including operations, business development, clinical development, medical and regulatory affairs,” said Dr. Markku Jalkanen, Chief Executive Officer of Faron Pharmaceuticals.
“He has made important contributions to our company over the past four years and with him and Marie-Louise in their new roles, I am more confident than ever that we have the right team and strategy in place to quickly move bexmarilimab from the clinic to a commercial launch. With this as our goal, we are also recruiting a Chief Business / Commercial Officer who will be based in our US office and support the negotiation and execution of business development transactions such as fund raising, drug candidate licensing, and other potential partnerships.”
Dr. Jalkanen joined Faron in 2018 as the Company’s Chief Development Officer. In that role he was responsible for translational and clinical studies as well as market research and valuation of research projects and clinical programs. He also served as Faron’s interim Chief Medical Officer in 2021 prior to the appointment of Dr. Marie-Louise Fjällskog in that role at the beginning of this year. Dr. Jalkanen earned a master´s degree in economics and business administration from the Turku School of Economics and both his M.D. and Ph.D. degree from the University of Turku.