Executive Team
James E. Hoyes
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
“Delivering new options to patients to better help manage their health and wellness provides the drive behind the day-to-day efforts of the Alitair team. By executing our business plan crisply – on time, on budget – and with the level of quality required for success with regulators and clinicians, Alitair can significantly improve both stakeholder and shareholder value.”
Mr. Hoyes began supporting Alitair Pharmaceuticals in late 2016 and was appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2017. He was also appointed to the Board of Directors in 2017 and became Chairman in early 2019 upon the retirement of co-founder, Dr. William Howard.
Mr. Hoyes has over 35 years of experience in biopharmaceuticals working on both in industry and in healthcare strategic consulting. He has a proven track record of building high performing teams and delivering consistent year-over-year double-digit revenue growth. Mr. Hoyes has deep experience in building brands, therapeutic areas and companies. He began his career at Sterling Winthrop in sales and earned positions of increasing responsibility in sales management, marketing, strategic marketing and managed care. Mr. Hoyes’s experiences at Sanofi (acquirer of Sterling Winthrop) included work with the launches of Avapro and Plavix and culminated with a position as Vice President, Managed Care. He then joined Elan as Vice President, Marketing which encompassed Neurology, Primary Care and Hospital brands. Mr. Hoyes then joined Serono in 2004 and quickly assumed positions of increasing seniority as EVP, Neurology Therapeutic Area and Chief Commercial Officer. His final position at EMD Serono (US division of Merck Serono) was President and Head of US Operations. This position was the lead of a US organization of over 1,000 employees and gross revenues approaching $2 billion. In 2010, while at EMD Serono, Hoyes was named one of the Top 100 Inspiring People by PharmaVoice.
Mr. Hoyes received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the Pennsylvania State University. In 2004-2005, Mr. Hoyes completed Executive Leadership programs at Sloan School of Management at MIT and The Garvin School of Management at Thunderbird. In 2009- 2010, Mr. Hoyes completed Executive Leadership programs at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and INSEAD.
Beginning in mid-2018, Mr. Hoyes was engaged by ENDECE (a pre-clinical biopharma company focused in the neuroscience therapeutic area) as a Strategic Advisor to the CEO and he will be joining the Board of Directors of ENDECE in late 2019. Presently, Mr. Hoyes also holds an Executive Partner position with RxC International, a healthcare strategy consulting group.
In addition to this extensive experience in therapeutic area leadership and general management, Mr. Hoyes has served on the boards of PhRMA, BIO (Health Section Governing Board), Mass BIO as well as several charitable organizations.
Helmut H. Albrecht, MD, MS, FFPM
Chief Scientific Officer (Key Consultant)
“Our focus on innovative formulation technology and orphan drug developments to address critical unmet medical needs is a key element of Alitair’s mission and what drives us to excel and meet the company’s objectives and goals.”
Dr. Albrecht is a 25 year veteran of the pharmaceutical business and brings a wealth of product development experience to the Company. Most recently, Dr. Albrecht was head of R&D at Adams Respiratory Therapeutics where he managed a wide variety of R&D, clinical and medical projects in cough, COPD and allergy. He was also a member of the senior management group at Adams, Business Operations Team (BOT). Prior to joining Adams Respiratory, he was VP of Global Clinical & Medical Development at Novartis Consumer Health. Earlier in his career he held key positions in the areas of pharmaceutical medicine, the Rx & OTC drug development space, the support of dietary supplement products at SmithKline Beecham, Procter & Gamble, and Altana Pharma in Germany and the US.
Russell F. Somma, PhD
Senior Vice President, Research & Product Development (Key Consultant)
Dr. Somma is a pharmaceutical industry veteran with over 35 years of product development experience, primarily at Ciba-Geigy/Novartis. He has considerable experience working with the FDA, having been involved in the development, manufacturing and approval of over 25 NDAs. Dr. Somma holds extensive experience working with ion-exchange resin formulations. Dr. Somma current manages his consulting firm SommaTech which supports biopharma companies with manufacturing, product development and regulatory workstreams and trouble-shooting. It is anticipated that Dr. Somma’s expertise and background will greatly advantage Alitair’s product development programs.