John W. Sharkey

Biography

Dr. Sharkey holds a degree in electroanalytical chemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo. With 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry, he has extensive experience in pharmaceutical and clinical development, manufacturing, business development and operations.Dr. Sharkey started his pharmaceutical career in the pharmaceutical development group at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, eventually being named the Head of Alternative Drug Delivery R&D prior to the merger with Ciba-Geigy to form Novartis. In 1996 Dr. Sharkey transferred to business development and held several positions of increasing responsibility, eventually being named VP of Business Development for Novartis Ophthalmics. In 2003 he joined Ophthalmic International as President and Head of Operations and in 2007 he joined Sciele Pharmaceuticals as VP of Business Development. Following Shionogi Pharma’s acquisition of Sciele in 2009, Dr Sharkey was named EVP of Business Development and Alliance Management for Shionogi Pharmaceuticals where he led the efforts to establish a global BD&L team for Shionogi Pharma. In 2010 Dr. Sharkey started Cógas Consulting, a boutique consultancy providing pharmaceutical development and business development services to small and mid-size pharma and medical device companies.Dr. Sharkey has been the lead, or a critical contributor, to several notable partnering transactions over the years including Novartis’ ex-US license with Genentech for Lucentis®, the transactions with Celgene and Elan for Focalin® as well as Shionogi’s global license for Osphena®. He has also assisted several companies in their financing activities over the years.In June of 2014 he was retained by Aeterna Zentaris to provide business development services on a consultancy basis.

Research Interest

Pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical and clinical development