Siegfried appoints Christian Dowdeswell as Chief Business Officer Drug Substances

Christian Dowdeswell will become Chief Business Officer Drug Substances and member of Siegfried’s Executive Committee. Marianne Späne will continue to lead the business development and sales activities in the area of finished dosage forms as Chief Business Officer Drug Products.  

As part of its growth strategy, Siegfried is strengthening the executive leadership team and appoints Christian Dowdeswell as Chief Business Officer Drug Substances and member of the Executive Committee. The actual start date shall be communicated at a later point in time. While Christian Dowdeswell will take over as Chief Business Officer Drug Substances, Marianne Späne will continue to serve as Chief Business Officer for Siegfried's Drug Products business, which has recently experienced strong growth organically, including the COVID vaccines business, as well as through the acquisition of the two manufacturing sites from Novartis in Spain. 

Wolfgang Wienand, Chief Executive Officer of Siegfried: "In light of our ambitions to deliver long-term profitable growth, we want to leverage the capabilities and capacities of our global network in the best possible way, deepen the relationships with existing customers and further expand our customer base towards new clients. In Christian, we have found a proven leader with a strong global network, in-depth knowledge of the whole CDMO market and profound expertise in the field of Drug Substances. I am confident that he will be a great addition to our team and look forward to seeing how Marianne and Christian, together with their respective teams, will further strengthen our business development activities of our integrated offering and contribute to our growth agenda as one of the leading CDMOs in the world." 

Christian Dowdeswell holds a PhD degree in organic chemistry from the University of Teesside (GB). After completing his studies, he started his career at Maybridge Chemicals, followed by positions with increasing responsibility at Synprotec Ltd, Contract Chemicals ,  and Dishman Pharmaceuticals & Chemicals where he was VP of Sales Marketing. In 2014, he joined Lonza and has held positions progressively as Head of Commercial Development for Chemical & Microbial Manufacturing and Head of the Dosage Forms & Delivery Systems Business Unit before being appointed in 2020 as Vice President and Global Head of Commercial Development of Lonza's small molecules custom manufacturing business.