TrakCel appoints Chief Product Officer to accelerate growth

Cardiff, UK, January 16, 2020 - TrakCel, the software developer for cell and gene therapy supply chain tracking and orchestration systems, announces today the appointment of Debra Susarchick as Chief Product Officer.

Debra Susarchick is TrakCel’s latest senior appointment as the company expands and focuses on growth and product management. TrakCel is looking to continue to innovate and improve efficiencies within the industry. It is therefore leading by example through its investment in developing and improving its own products and services.

“TrakCel’s software orchestration platforms are already established, in terms of primary provision to international clinical development of the cell and gene therapy industry. The next step in TrakCel’s pursuit of growth, and supporting the industry in creating commercially viable cell and gene therapies, is to further extend, develop and tailor its products in line with the sectors fast growing market needs,” said Ravi Nalliah, CEO, TrakCel. “We selected Debra Susarchick for her first-hand commercial experience, especially leading the roll out of Kite Konnect(TM) in 21 countries, as well as clinical tenure from her positions at Celgene and Merck. In the role of Chief Product Officer, Debra will make a significant contribution towards the clinical and commercial requirements of our customers.”

Debra brings to TrakCel over 22 years of experience within the pharmaceutical industry and 11 within oncology and cell therapy. In particular, Debra’s experience, as Senior Director of Cell Therapy Business Optimization at Kite Pharma saw her direct the design, development and global launch of the Kite Konnect(TM) customer engagement platform, which supported the launch of Yescarta(R), the first autologous CAR-T therapy for adult Large B Cell Lymphoma. Debra was involved in solving linguistic, cultural, regulatory, financial, IT, clinical and legal requirements for the product. Her key focus was in customer service, where she harnessed her industry knowledge and partnerships. This will be essential for her work with TrakCel. Furthermore, her role at Kite role enabled her to gather a considerable amount of clinical experience, working on the ground in with US and international hospitals.

Debra additionally acquired extensive clinical and commercial experience in her position as Senior Director of Commercial Operations at Celgene, where she directed the implementation of large transformation and enablement programs in support of Celgene’s Hematology/Oncology franchise. As a result of this acquired experience, Debra brings additional industry insight to TrakCel in bridging the clinical and commercial gap for clients.

Serving 12 years at Merck, as the Manager of Human Health client services, Debra developed exemplary client relationships through the account management of a USD 13 million project portfolio in support of the global sales & marketing organization. These skills will be an integral part of her new role at TrakCel.

“The cell and gene therapy industry is expanding and TrakCel is growing with the industry. When a company grows, it needs to make ongoing changes to develop. I hope to make a significant contribution to that change – with a key focus on the requirements for commercialization and standardization within the sector,” said Debra Susarchick, Chief Product Officer, TrakCel. “I am very excited to engage with TrakCel’s current and prospective customers, understand their unique business requirements and then partner with our very competent technology team to build out additional components and functionality that will continue to position TrakCel’s products as the premier selling gene therapy orchestration platform available.”

TrakCel is the market leading designer, developer and deliverer of integrated technologies specifically created in 2012 to manage the international autologous and allogeneic cell, gene and immunotherapy supply chain. TrakCel’s software platform has been developed in collaboration with, and increasingly adopted by leading companies in the cell, gene and immunotherapy industries. TrakCel’s solutions deliver real-time control over the entire therapeutic supply chain, from sample collection through manufacturing to treatment delivery. The TrakCel platform accelerates global scale-up and scale-out of cell and gene therapy products, increasing efficiency and decreasing complexity, while maintaining needle-to-needle compliance and traceability. TrakCel is headquartered in Cardiff, Wales, UK with US offices in California and New Jersey.