The Board of Directors of Hilleman Laboratories today announced that Dr Davinder Gill will leave his current role as CEO of Hilleman Laboratories on 31 January 2020, after more than eight years at the company. Dr Gill is relocating to the United States where his family is based. He will be replaced by Dr Raman Rao, who will assume the role as CEO on 1 February. Dr Rao has more than 22 years’ experience in research and development, manufacturing and commercialisation of vaccines for infectious diseases, and is joining from Takeda Vaccines where he was Vice President of Global Product Operations. Dr Gill joined Hilleman in 2012 after two decades in the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector. Dr Gill said: “I am privileged to have led an outstanding team at Hilleman over the last eight years. Together, we built a strong organization with an innovative pipeline of vaccines and technologies. We forged critical collaborations and licensed our products for vaccine commercialization while strengthening the Hilleman brand globally.” Dr Rao said: “I am extremely pleased and excited to join Hilleman Laboratories and contribute to its mission of providing global health solutions. I look forward to working with its dynamic team in their endeavour to develop affordable vaccines.” Dr Gerd Zettlmeissl, Chair of the Hilleman Board of Directors, said: “I would like to thank Davinder for his dedication and leadership of Hilleman over the past eight years. During his time as CEO, he has built Hilleman into a highly respected organisation in developing vaccines for global health. The Board is delighted to have hired a perfect successor in Raman and we are pleased to welcome him to lead Hilleman Laboratories through its exciting next phase.” Hilleman Laboratories is a research and development joint venture between Wellcome and MSD, with a not-for-profit mission to develop affordable vaccines for diseases that commonly affect low-income countries.
Established in 2009, it also works to optimise existing vaccines to make them more suitable and affordable, an important and powerful way of increasing the impact of vaccination in
resource-limited settings.