Tuesday, August 23, 2022

TESSA THERAPEUTICS HIRES THOMAS WILLEMSEN AS PRESIDENT AND CEO

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 22 (Bernama) -- Tessa Therapeutics Ltd (Tessa), a clinical-stage cell therapy company, has announced the appointment of Thomas Willemsen as its president and chief executive officer (CEO) effective Oct 1, 2022. 

Bringing more than 25 years of experience to Tessa with extensive international management and leadership experience in the pharmaceuticals industry, Willemsen has also been named as a member of Tessa’s board of directors, according to a statement.

He joins Tessa from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where he served as senior vice-president, Asia Pacific, leading the transformation of Takeda across 10 markets and enhancing its focus on rare and genetic diseases, oncology, and vaccines.

“Tessa is extremely pleased to add an executive of Thomas’ calibre as our new president and CEO, coming at a time of significant optimism at the company as we pursue a multi-tier development strategy built around our proprietary CAR-T technologies and fuelled by the recently completed US$126 million financing.

“His combination of executive experience at global pharma companies and deep understanding of commercialisation and oncology makes Thomas an ideal executive to lead Tessa’s next stage of growth,” said Göran Ando, M.D., chairman of the board of Tessa Therapeutics.

As president and CEO, Willemsen will lead Tessa’s corporate, business and development strategy focused on maximising the value potential of the company’s proprietary autologous and allogeneic CAR-T platforms.

He will lead Tessa from its global headquarters in Singapore.

John Ng, who had served as Tessa’s acting CEO since November 2021, will continue as the company’s chief technical officer.

Willemsen graduated with an MBA from Trier University, Germany, and attained a Chinese language degree from Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.

-- BERNAMA

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