Leadership change at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies as Meeson appointed CEO

Japanese bio-focused CDMO Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies has announced a change of leadership with president and COO, Martin Meeson taking over as CEO, replacing Steve Bagshaw, who is retiring.

Before joining FDB, Meeson was finance director at Oxford Chemicals, responsible for finance, IT, and purchasing. He has also held leadership positions at Hibernia Foods, ICI/DuPont and KPMG.

The change is effective April 1, 2020 and Bagshaw will continue with FDB as non-executive chairman.

“FDB has an exciting future ahead. I am delighted to see Martin take on the role of chief executive officer to lead the organization in its future growth” said Steve Bagshaw. “Martin has the skill set and experience to work with all of the FDB teams and our partners across the world to continue to deliver on our mission to advance tomorrow’s medicines.”

Earlier this month, FDB started work on capacity expansion to support high throughput and large volume gene therapy products at its Texas manufacturing facility.

The USD $35 million expansion project includes new cell culture and high throughput manufacturing suites at the College Station facility, which will also house multiple 500L and 2000L bioreactors. FDB said it will complement development and early phase manufacturing capabilities at its National Centre for Therapeutic Medicine, also at College Station.

FDB, a partnership between Fujifilm Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation, also has sites in Teesside in the UK, Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, and Hillerod in Denmark.