FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 8, 2010 (Chapel Hill, NC)—Thought Leader Select, a North Carolina-based firm dedicated to providing solutions for key opinion leader engagement and deployment for the biopharmaceutical industry, announces the expansion of its global business development team.
The research and consulting firm now has business development capabilities to match its track record in global key opinion leader identification research with the additions of Dr. Daniel Bagi and Mr. John Kelly.
Dr. Bagi, who splits his time between Mexico City and Toronto, will serve as Thought Leader Select’s principal agent for Central America, South America, and Spain. Mr. Kelly, of Northampton, UK, will develop Thought Leader Select’s business as its principal agent for Europe and Asia. Bagi and Kelly join Neil Mellor, who joined Thought Leader Select’s team in February of 2009 as its principal agent for North America.
During his 20-year professional career, Daniel Bagi has served the pharmaceutical industry in a variety of capacities, including product development, regulatory affairs, and licensing. Dr. Bagi directed global clinical development for a suite of anti-cancer drug therapies at Lorus Therapeutics of Markham, Ontario and IGT Pharma of Vancouver, British Columbia. More recently, Dr. Bagi has served as a senior consultant to EM Diagnostics, a US-based breast cancer diagnostic company, and, since 2005, he has served as a medical consultant to Riso Pharma Tech, a company based in Toronto and Tehran that is dedicated to developing pharmaceuticals for Latin America and the Middle East.
Daniel Bagi holds a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Monterrey, in Mexico.
John Kelly is a 42-year veteran of the biopharmaceutical industry, with a wide-ranging career of service, including stints in sales, training, territory management, and commercial development of pharmaceutical products. Prior to founding UK pharmaceutical consulting firm Moffat-Dickson, Ltd in 2006, Kelly established and managed the European operations of Kowa Japan, a Japanese pharmaceutical company with clinical development in Europe, Russia, and India. Kelly also established and managed European operations for another Japanese pharmaceutical concern, Kyowa Hakko, and served as commercial manager for Martindale Pharmaceuticals of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Kelly holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Oxford (UK) Brookes University.
Neil Mellor is a 20-year veteran of the biopharmaceutical industry, with leadership stints at Solvay Pharmaceuticals and Pharmacia. Mellor has extensive experience in the areas of international public relations and marketing, and most recently served as vice president of business development at Spexell Pharma, a Canadian specialty pharmaceutical company.
Mellor holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Victoria University in British Columbia.
“We are obviously thrilled to have Daniel and John, men with proven track records of success while leading units of global pharmaceutical companies in North America and Europe, join our team at Thought Leader Select,” stated Kristen Smithwick., the firm’s vice president of global sales, marketing, and strategic planning. “We owe much of our recent success to Neil Mellor’s inside knowledge of the industry and its needs, which has helped us to gain market share and meet client needs in the United States and Canada. We have no doubt that we will achieve similar success with Dr. Bagi and Mr. Kelly, who will take our exclusive “deep profiling” research methodology for engagement and deployment of key opinion leaders to companies based in Latin America, Europe, and Asia.”
About Thought Leader Select
Thought Leader Select is a specialty firm focused on providing solutions—research, technology tools and focused advice/consulting—for more effective KOL engagement and deployment in the healthcare industry. Thought Leader Select’s groundbreaking work bridges the areas of research, communications and technology. With more than 70 years of combined experience working in and with the pharmaceutical industry, Thought Leader Select is addressing needs for better engagement and more sophisticated deployment of KOLs during drug development and the life cycle of the brand.
Media Contact:
Kristen Smithwick
Vice President of Global Sales, Marketing, and Planning
252-945-8352
ksmithwick@thoughtleaderselect.com
