Santhera Pharmaceuticals announced that announced the strengthening of the leadership team through nomination of senior members of staff to its Executive Management and the appointment of a Chief Commercial Officer. With effect of February 1, 2015, the Board of Directors announced the expansion of the company's leadership team and appointed senior staff members Nicholas Coppard, PhD, SVP Head Development, Gunther Metz, PhD, SVP Business Development, and Oliver Strub, General Counsel and Secretary to the Board, to the Executive Management Team headed by CEO Thomas Meier, PhD. Also effective February 1, 2015, Giovanni Stropoli has been appointed as Chief Commercial Officer for Europe and Rest of World.

He will report to the company's CEO, Thomas Meier, and will also join the Executive Management. Mr. Stropoli joins Santhera from InterMune. Nicholas Coppard, PhD (SVP, Head Development) joined Santhera in 2008.

Gunther Metz, PhD (SVP, Business Development) joined Santhera in 2004 from Graffinity, one of the two companies that merged to form Santhera. Previously he worked in drug discovery at Fournier Pharma. Oliver Strub (SVP, General Counsel & Secretary to the Board) joined Santhera in 2006.

As an experienced commercial lawyer he previously worked as Head Corporate Law and Chief Compliance Officer for Ciba-Geigy and Ciba Specialty Chemicals (now part of BASF). Giovanni Stropoli (Chief Commercial Officer Europe & RoW) has over 25 years of experience in commercialization, sales and marketing of pharmaceutical products. Prior to InterMune, where he was responsible for the successful launch of the orphan drug Esbriet(R) in 11 countries, he held senior commercial functions with Eisai, ALK-Abello and Eli Lilly.