International Biosimilars Trade Group Appoints New Leadership for 2022

The International Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association has appointed a new chair to lead the manufacturers trade association through the coming year.

Vivian Frittelli, MBA, ACIS, the CEO of Generic and Biosimilar Medicines of Southern Africa (GBM), is taking over from Sudarhsan Jain, secretary general of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance. Frittelli has also served as chair of the IGBA in the past.

GBM is also a trade association representing manufacturers and distributors in pharmaceuticals in South Africa. The group has made expanding access to biosimilar and generic medicines a focus of its efforts. Biosimilars are as safe and efficacious as the brand-name products they reference.

Frittelli has roughly 25 years of experience working in the pharmaceutical industry. He formerly headed Hoffmann La Roche’s marketing and sales division in South Africa and later became country manager for Roche in Saudi Arabia. He has also served as regional director for the Smile Train, which works to bring surgical attention to children with cleft lips and palates in the Southern Africa region.

Frittelli has also worked for Sandoz Pharmaceuticals to establish their oncology division in South Africa.

IGBA has worked with the World Health Organization to reduce clinical trials requirements for biosimilar development, so that unnecessary measures of biosimilarity can be replaced by more modern, reliable means of verifying equivalence to reference products. Jain stepped into the IGBA chair role in January 2021.

“Despite these disruptive times, tangible progress was made under the WHO-IGBA Memorandum of Understanding, which allowed the IGBA submission for the WHO Non-State Actor status, which aims to increase worldwide access to affordable quality treatment,” Jain said in a statement.

Under Jain, the IGBA in 2021 published a whitepaper mapping out a blueprint for expanding generic and biosimilar access worldwide, calling for fair patenting and litigation systems, harmonized regulatory frameworks across international borders, and support for new technology and new drug development, in the form of allowances for financial support for development.

“I am very pleased to take over the Chair of IGBA for the second time and look forward to building upon the strong leadership of Sudarshan Jain,” Frittelli said.

The group also noted that Jonathan Kimball, vice president of Trade and International Affairs at the Association for Accessible Medicines, wil take over as vice chair of the IGBA. Kimball has served as vice chair of the IGBA International Trade and Intellectual Property Committee.