Giulio Cerroni appointed CEO of IXICO

Brain health company IXICO announced on Tuesday that Giulio Cerroni will be appointed to the board as chief executive officer, with effect from 6 February.

The AIM-traded firm said Derek Hill, the co-founder and current CEO, will remain on the board and continue to serve as an executive director.

It said Hill will have specific responsibility for deepening the company's relationships with major pharmaceutical companies, key opinion leaders and government agencies as well as advancing its range of digital technologies.

Cerroni reportedly has almost 30 years of international management experience gained in life sciences and diagnostics sectors.

He was previously managing director of the genomics division of LGC Group, where he grew divisional revenues threefold and doubled profits through a combined organic and acquisitive growth strategy into an organisation with 480 staff based in ten locations globally.

Between April 2015 and August 2016, he led and integrated three US-based acquisitions, significantly enhancing LGC's position as a leading global genomics tools platform.

Previously, Cerroni held a variety of senior roles at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Abgene, Anachem, ICN Biomedicals and Du Pont.

He has a BSc from Cardiff University and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

“We are delighted to welcome Giulio to IXICO where he will work with the executive team to lead the business into its next phase of growth,” said non-executive chairman Charles Spicer.

“Giulio brings extensive experience in both scaling operations to build businesses and supplying sophisticated products and services to the pharmaceutical and research communities.”

Spicer also acknowledged Hill's contributions and vision that enabled IXICO to establish itself as a leading company focused on applying innovative digital technologies to brain health.

Giulio Cerroni added that he is “very excited” to be joining IXICO to lead the company's next stage of growth towards becoming the global leader in digital healthcare technologies for the brain health market.

“Brain diseases are an area of huge unmet need and provide a significant growth opportunity for IXICO's digital health technology platform.

“In particular, I believe that our scientific leadership in medical data analysis makes IXICO uniquely placed to become the global partner of choice to the pharmaceutical industry as they integrate digital healthcare technologies as part of their overall product offering.”