Histogenics Adds Two to Management Team

Histogenics Corp. is bulking up its management team.

The Waltham, Mass.-based late-stage company has hired Stephen Kennedy as senior vice president of manufacturing, operations and supply chain; and Vladimir Scerbin as vice president of clinical affairs.

“As a late stage company developing an orthopedic implant that involves regenerative and cellular medicine technologies, the combined skills that both Stephen and Vladimir bring to the table will be critical moving forward,” new CEO Peter Greenleaf said. “Our near term goal is to move the NeoCart Phase 3 clinical trial forward and get it fully enrolled as quickly as possible. We feel our management team is poised to do that.”

Kennedy brings more than 30 years of experience in biological manufacturing and process development to his new job. He most recently served as executive vice president of research and development at Mascoma Corporation, a provider of technology for the conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals. Prior to that, Kennedy worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Genzyme Corporation.

Prior to joining Histogenics, Scerbin served as vice president of international clinical affairs at Covidien plc, a global healthcare products company. At Covidien, Scerbin expanded and optimized the efficiency of the international clinical affairs function. Prior to Covidien, Scerbin worked for Confluent Surgical Incorporated and Boston Scientific Corporation.

Histogenics’ lead product, NeoCart, is an investigational personalized cartilage tissue implant to treat knee injuries. The proprietary procedure uses regenerative medicine technology to create personalized hyaline-like cartilage tissue from a patient’s own cells, which may potentially result in a durable, long-lasting patient response.

Histogenics develops tissue repair solutions for orthopedic applications. Clinical trial results for NeoCart show the implant significantly improves pain and function within six months of treatment, has a comparable safety profile to microfracture surgery, provides better improvements in more patients compared with microfracture, and is equally as effective as microfracture two years after treatment.