The biomedical industry entrepreneur Antonio Parente has joined the Specipig board of directors as an independent director. Parente will combine this position with his roles on the governing bodies of GP Pharm and BCN Peptides.
Maria Àngels Rial of Semen Cardona is leaving her position as president of the board, to be replaced by Jaume Amat, Specipig CEO.
Parente has been taken on to meet the goal of consolidating the company’s growth as it celebrates its fifth anniversary, and to position it on the international market as a leader in the pig model for biomedical research CRO services. In the first half of 2018, 80% of Specipig’s turnover was generated from clients from other countries, mainly the United Kingdom, Germany and France.
Antoni Parente tells us “new and better animals are extremely important in order to make progress in preclinical research. In this sense the swine model, due to its similarity to the human model, can provide new ways of assessing the toxicity, effectiveness and functionality of new products before beginning clinical trials”.
As well as being a successful entrepreneur with a long career, Antonio Parente has a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Barcelona, an MBA from Esade and a PADE (senior management diploma) from IESE. He was a founder of CataloniaBio, and in 2010 and 2014 was president of the association (today CataloniaBio & HealthTech).