Arranta Bio Announces Key Promotions and Addition to its Board of Directors

Arranta Bio, the leading microbiome contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), announced the promotion of David Stevens to President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) and the appointment of Iain Baird to Arranta Bio’s Board of Directors.

“I am delighted to announce the promotion of David Stevens and to share that Iain Baird is joining Arranta Bio’s Board. I look forward to continuing to work with them as we build the leading, best-in-class microbiome CDMO,” said Mark Bamforth, Executive Chairman and CEO of Arranta Bio.

Mr. Stevens joined Arranta Bio at its inception as COO. His expanded role now includes business development and commercial operations, Quality, and site operations functions at both Arranta Bio’s Gainesville, FL location for process development and early clinical manufacturing and the Watertown, MA location for late-clinical and commercial manufacturing of live biopharmaceutical products (LBPs) for microbiome product pioneers. The organization has now grown to 130 employees and occupies over 100,000 ft² of space dedicated to supporting this sector.

Mr. Stevens brings more than 20 years of broad international operations and commercial experience in the CRO and CDMO sectors. He was formerly the Senior Vice President & Head of AMRI’s Drug Product business unit where he had P&L responsibility for sales and operations. During his tenure, he led the division through a period of significant growth and capacity expansion. Prior to leading the division, Mr. Stevens held a number of senior leadership roles at AMRI, including Vice President, Sales & Marketing and General Manager of a sterile dosage form development and GMP manufacturing facility.

Prior to AMRI, Mr. Stevens held leadership roles of increasing responsibility at Aptuit, including site leadership and operational excellence He started his career with Inveresk and Charles River Laboratories.

Mr. Stevens holds an MBA in strategy, finance and marketing from the University of Edinburgh and an undergraduate degree in Business from Edinburgh.

Mr. Baird is a founder of Arranta Bio and was instrumental in building the foundation of the company.  He now joins the Board of Directors. Mr. Baird runs his own consultancy business and has worked with the founders/CEO’s of six companies over the past 10 years, starting companies developing new biological pharmaceutical products and CDMOs providing services to the sector, including OSO BioPharmaceuticals Manufacturing, CANbridge Life Sciences, Gallus Biopharmaceuticals, Brammer Bio, and Vibalogics US.

Prior to that, Mr. Baird worked 20 years in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. He started work for ICI, which later became Zeneca and then AstraZeneca. In 2006, he was one of the principles that established Avecia Vaccines, during which he led the Chemistry Manufacturing and Control groups in the development of vaccines against anthrax and plague.

Since 2010, Mr. Baird has been an independent consultant assisting clients in the development of their clinical products and has been involved in filing 16 IND’s, three successful BLA applications and three successful NDA applications, as well as remediating a product placed on CMC hold by the FDA. Iain has supported clients through numerous FDA, EMA and international regulatory inspections.

Mr. Baird holds a BEng in mechanical and electrical engineering from Robert Gordons University.

About 400 companies are actively exploring the linkage between diseases and the Marvelous Microbiome – millions of bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses that live inside and on the human body – in order to identify therapeutic targets. Scientists have called the microbiome the second genome; in fact, the number of genes in the microbes making up one person’s microbiome is estimated to be at least 200 times the number in the human genome.

In the past decade, the industry has experienced a rapid acceleration in scientific understanding of the composition and functions of gut microbiota. Arranta Bio is proud to be the leading CDMO focused on supporting the supply needs of these innovator companies.