John Conner, Ms

Biography

John brings more than 30 years of experience in the areas of Process Development, Manufacturing, Technical Transfer and Analytics for all phases of clinical development as well as commercial manufacturing of complex biologics. Mr. Conner has oversight responsibility for all cGMP Manufacturing operations. Prior to Paragon he has spent much of his career successfully meeting the challenges of providing manufacturing services to the biotechnology industry. He was most recently Senior Vice President of Operations at Cytovance Biologics, a start-up CDMO where John was responsible for building the operations team, manufacturing facilities and GMP systems to provide world class GMP manufacturing over several biologic platforms the past 11 years. Mr. Conner led the GMP Manufacturing and Manufacturing Science and Technology Teams in the development and production of therapeutic proteins using Mammalian, Microbial and Transgenic processes to produce Monoclonal Antibodies (IgGs, IgMs), Therapeutic Enzymes, Fusion proteins, and Cytokines. He has also been responsible in the implementation of “Flex Suite” strategy at Cytovance for the flexible and custom development and manufacture of specialized biologic products such as Vaccines, Cellular Immunotherapeutics, Stem Cell therapeutics, Gene Therapy products, Conjugations, Tissue / Extracellular Matrix Products, Unique platforms (Insect cell lines, transgenic) and Medical Device or Combination Products. Prior to his tenure at Cytovance, past positions have included serving as Associate Director, Technical Support of CancerVax Corporation, where he was responsible for process development, manufacturing, technology transfer as well as the design, construction and operation of two biologics manufacturing facilities for clinical and early commercial production. In addition, he has held management positions at the John Wayne Cancer Institute and Gene Therapy Laboratories, where he managed complex immunotherapeutics and gene-therapy vector development and production. Mr. Conner is also the Senior Author on several Industry Publications “Biotechnology Entrepreneurship: Starting, Managing and Leading Biotech Companies, Chapter 26 The Biomanufacturing of Biotechnology Products”, Shimasaki, Elsevier 2014 and a PDA publication “Pharmaceutical Outsourcing: Quality Management and Project Delivery: Chapter 11 CMOs For Early Phase Biologicals Production: Contract Manufacturing and Controls”, Deeks, Ginsbury and Schniepp, PDA 2013. John attended Texas Tech University and holds a B.S. in Microbiology and completed his M.S. Graduate Studies in Biological Sciences from the University of Texas at El Paso. 

Research Interest

Microbiology , Biological Sciences