Essential Pharma appoints Colin Brown as COO

Essential Pharma, an international pharmaceutical generics company, has appointed Colin Brown as its chief operating officer.

Brown has over 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare sectors, primarily focused on pharmaceutical development. In addition, he has had roles as diverse as clinical supply manufacturing, quality compliance, project management and business development, Essential Pharma said on Tuesday (Feb 9).

The new appointee joins Essential Pharma after 16 years at Mentholatum, a leading topical analgesics company, where he was head of research and quality development. Prior to this, Brown was an associate director at contract research organisation Quintiles.

Ingvild Liborg, chief executive of Essential Pharma, said: “Essential Pharma is an ambitious company with a clear growth strategy based on expanding our product portfolio and international reach. The success of this strategy is underpinned by our commitment to continuously improving our processes and efficiency to continue to deliver the best possible outcomes for patients.

“I am therefore very pleased to welcome Colin to the company, where his vast experience in operations across both the pharma and healthcare industries will prove invaluable in achieving our goals and ensuring that we continue to deliver value for all our stakeholders.”

Supplying a portfolio of over 150 essential therapies across nine therapeutic areas, Essential Pharma claims that it brings "difficult to manufacture but clinically well-established" pharmaceutical products to patients in over 20 countries.

The company was recently bought by a Swiss private equity firm and was in the news when it raised the price of an epilepsy pill used by the NHS to treat patients with bipolar disorder.