Group Leadership Team
Celonic Group is an internationally active biotechnology service company which is part of the JRS Pharma Group. Our headquarters is located in Basel, Switzerland, one of the most important cities for pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Our second facility is in Heidelberg, Germany, a historical city of science and culture.
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Celonic Services
We are ambitious. Driven with the courage to think big and the commitment to GET IT DONE !
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Samanta Cimitan is the Chief Executive Officer at Celonic Group and a member of the Executive Committee since June 2022.
With more than 20 years of experience working, teaching, and studying in Life Sciences, Samanta is an expert in the CDMO industry, holding a deep and unique combination of scientific, commercial, and operational expertise.
Samanta joins from Lonza Group, after almost thirteen years of holding several leadership positions across multiple commercial and strategy functions. Most recently, she was Vice President of Lonza Group Operations Strategy, developing and leading transformational programs across R&D, Operations, and Commercial functions.
Prior to joining Lonza, Samanta was Head of Business Ventures Life Sciences for Ciba AG/ BASF with responsibility for global teams across technical development, business development, and marketing.
Samanta holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Bologna, Italy, along with a master’s degree in Industrial Chemistry.
WHAT ASPECT(S) OF YOUR WORK MOTIVATES YOU?
Celonic operates within the dynamic CDMO space, where each day gives us the unique opportunity to brainstorm the development of breakthrough bio-solutions of the future together with our biotech customers. I am passionate to further build and deliver outstanding manufacturing services and an exceptional customer experience together with the highly skilled and collaborative team at Celonic.
WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR CELONIC?
I strongly believe in Celonic’s commitment to increasing biotherapeutics manufacturing effectiveness and addressing the unique customer challenges along the product lifecycle to develop tailored-made solutions for long-term partnerships and mutual success. As a united team working towards the same vision, we thrive to drive accelerated growth and customer satisfaction based on Celonic’s essence and core values of empathy, efficiency, and excellence.
Head of Global Engineering
Dr. Matthias Meyer is the Head of Global Engineering and a member of the Executive Committee at Celonic Group since September 2022. As Head of Global Engineering, he aims to strengthen the company’s focus on operational excellence, in particular building highly efficient development and manufacturing facilities that deliver outstanding services and unparalleled customer experience through product quality, safety and on-time delivery. He brings a wealth of experience to this role from his 20-year-long career.
Matthias holds a Process & Chemical Engineering diploma and a Doctorate of Engineering from the Technische Universität Braunschweig. He joins Celonic Group from Novartis, after 10-years of several leadership positions in the headquarters and at affiliate sites including California and Singapore where he built several Site Engineering Organizations. Importantly, Matthias also led the breakthrough build-up of the Cell & Gene Therapy manufacturing facility that is changing the lives of patients today.
WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AT CELONIC?
Celonic Group aims to be a premium CDMO and our Heidelberg site wants to add significant value to the Group by becoming a flagship site manufacturing life-saving therapeutics. We aim to be the first choice for our customers and people.
Group Chief Financial Officer
Alex holds a Masters of Arts from the University of St. Gallen (HSG), Switzerland, with a focus on Finance & Controlling, and is a certified Swiss Chartered Public Accountant.
Alex brings a wealth of professional experience and business expertise to this role.
Most recently, Alex served as the Vice President of Finance at Anjarium Biosciences, a pioneering genetic bioservices company dedicated to developing and delivering scalable synthetic DNA for viral vector manufacturing, mRNA production, and gene therapy delivery applications. Prior to that, Alex held positions of increasing responsibility in several global Pharma, Biotech and CDMO companies, including Novartis, Celonic and Polpharma Biologics. At Novartis, Alex held senior financial and commercial roles, spanning from 2002 to 2020, including Head Finance of the impactful “Customer First” commercial program and Global Head of Finance Biopharmaceutical Process and Drug Development. Alex received the Novartis Group Finance Excellent award in 2015 for his crucial role in setting up the new Novartis Business Services (NBS) organization.
In his new capacity, Alex Villiger will be responsible for Celonic Group’s Finance function as well as IT. He will be a member of the Celonic Group Executive Committee.