OptiNose Expands Senior Management Team with Three Key Appointments in Core Business Areas of Operations, Regulatory Affairs and Commercialization

YARDLEY, Pa., June 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- OptiNose, a global specialty pharmaceuticals company, today announced three appointments to the Company's senior management team. This expansion of the executive leadership will help drive the Company forward in its mission to introduce new and valuable treatment options to the market utilizing its novel Bi-Directional™ Breath Powered™ Delivery Technology. The recently appointed executives have served at some of the most prestigious companies in the health care and life sciences industry, and together they bring more than 65 years of industry experience to OptiNose.

Ramona Lloyd, Ph.D. has joined the Company as Vice President, Regulatory Affairs & Quality. Dr. Lloyd has held executive leadership positions in Regulatory Affairs and Quality with such companies as Sanofi-Aventis, Bristol Myers-Squibb, and Johnson & Johnson. Following her time as Vice President, Regulatory Affairs with Bristol-Myers Squibb, she acted as Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Safety for ImClone Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company. Most recently she has served as a consultant in regulatory affairs to the pharmaceutical industry.

Sheila Bergey has joined the Company as Vice President, Operations & Program Management. Mrs. Bergey spent 25 years with Johnson & Johnson where she held leadership positions in Operations, Supply Chain, Change Management – including Strategic Planning, Program Management, Information Technology, Process Excellence and Procurement. Interested in the challenges of more entrepreneurial ventures, she founded Saybrook Consulting LLC and then was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Lindi Skin, a skin care company in the Philadelphia area. Most recently, Mrs. Bergey was with MannKind Corporation, a bio-pharmaceutical company focused on developing drug-device combination product technologies.

Terrence Terifay has joined the Company as Senior Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. Most recently, Mr. Terifay held commercial leadership positions at Mallinckrodt, including Vice President, Marketing and interim General Manager, Branded Specialty Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Mallinckrodt, he was the Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Synchrony Healthcare Group.  He has also held positions of leadership and roles with increasing responsibility at Cephalon, Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson.

"I am excited to welcome Ramona, Sheila and Terry to OptiNose and to our senior management team," said Peter Miller, Chief Executive Officer of OptiNose. "Their combined years of experience and significant strengths in their respective fields will help solidify our position as a specialty pharmaceuticals company and help advance our core pipeline. I am excited to have them on board and believe their collective skills and experience will be highly complementary to the talented group of colleagues already in the company."

About OptiNose 
OptiNose is a Specialty Pharmaceutical Company built around a unique nasal delivery platform. The bi-directional™ Breath Powered™ device platform provides dramatically enhanced delivery of drug into the nasal cavity versus current treatments. When used to deliver select medications, the technology can enable value enhanced products with important new efficacy or safety characteristics. OptiNose has created single and multi-use devices for intranasal delivery of both liquid and powder drug formulations. The strongly patent-protected technology has been successfully tested in a number of clinical trials evaluating the advantages of this new technology. OptiNose is developing a pipeline of assets currently for the treatment of Central Nervous System disorders and Nasal Inflammatory Diseases. For more information, please visit www.optinose.com.

Investors in OptiNose include Avista Capital Partners in New York, WFD Ventures LLC located in New York and Entrepreneurs Fund LP based in Jersey, Channel Islands.

SOURCE OptiNose