Lourie Zak, Former Amgen Finance Executive, Joins PBS Biotech, Inc. as Chief Financial Officer

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Zak brings wealth of biopharmaceutical, financial management and business expertise to fast growth biotech equipment firm

Camarillo, California, September 7, 2011 / B3C newswire / - PBS Biotech®, Inc., the leading supplier of innovative single-use bioreactors for the fast growing biotechnology market, announced today Lourie Zak, a former executive director of finance at Amgen, has joined the company as Chief Financial Officer.

”Lourie is a great addition to the PBS Biotech executive team and will be a driver in managing our financial controls, providing financial leadership and decision support, and in securing capital for our growth,” said Dr. Brian Lee, president and co-founder of the company. “Her strong background in finance as well as knowledge of the biotech industry bring tremendous business depth and leadership experience that complements our team,” he said.  

For the past eight years, Zak held executive roles of increasing responsibility at biotech leader Amgen. Joining Amgen in 2003, she served as special projects lead on the process improvements team overseeing the finance integration of Tularik a research firm acquired by Amgen and served for three years as European Controller based in Breda, The Netherlands for Amgen Europe. In that post she implemented the European Union controllership function, led efforts to establish a shared service center, and improved internal controls, financial reporting and compliance processes.

For the past four years, Zak was executive director finance for Amgen’s Global Commercial Operations at the Thousand Oaks, CA headquarters. She provided financial analysis and decision support to executive leadership in a rapidly changing environment that included product launches, global regulatory and reimbursement volatility, the enactment of U.S. healthcare reform and increased competition.

Prior to Amgen, Zak held controllership and vice president finance positions at various firms including Dream Works SKG, eToys, and Sony Pictures Television International. She began her career in tax with KPMG Peat Marwick and later Ernst & Young and served as director of tax and later director of financial reporting at Orion Pictures. 

Zak takes over the financial reins at PBS Biotech as the company brings its novel single-use bioreactors to market. Rapid adoption of single-use bioreactors is occurring across all stages of the bioprocess as global biopharma firms embrace single-use technology to drive out costs in both R&D and production while increasing process flexibility, operational efficiency and accelerating time to market.

PBS Biotech offers a product line of bioreactors with the industry’s most advanced features such as ease of use, full scalability from lab to production, low shear by novel Air Wheel™ mixing mechanism and plug and play configurations.  The bioreactors are used in developing and producing animal, insect, and plant cell cultures for creation of life saving and quality of life improving vaccines and therapeutic protein drugs including biosimilars. PBS was recently named Business of the Year by the Pacific Coast Business Times and in late August acquired Integrity CMI of Camarillo.


About PBS Biotech 
PBS Biotech, Inc. is a US corporation that manufactures fully scalable and easy to use single-use bioreactors for global biotechnology organizations. The company has patented innovative industrial designs and advanced software driven control systems that produce low shear, cell culture solutions improving operational flexibility and process efficiency, reducing operating costs and accelerating time to market for biotechnology customers. With headquarters in Camarillo, CA. the company is poised for rapid growth to support industry demand for single-use technologies. PBS Biotech is a member of the BioProcess Systems Alliance (BPSA).

 
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