Management
The Horizon team is made up of senior executives and advisors with extensive experience in the areas of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and consumer products. Members of the Horizon team have played integral roles in the creation and launch of multi-billion dollar products and companies.
Timothy Walbert
President and Chief Executive Officer
Tim serves as our President and Chief Executive Officer as well as a member of our board of directors. He brings to Horizon almost 20 years of proven experience launching and commercializing blockbuster drugs in the pain and arthritis fields, including HUMIRA, Celebrex, Arthrotec, and Daypro as well as broad executive and general management experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Mr. Walbert's most recent position is as President, Chief Executive Officer and board member at IDM Pharma (NASDAQ: IDMI), which he joined in 2007. IDM Pharma is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of innovative products that activate the immune system to treat cancer. At IDM Pharma, Tim has led a significant turnaround effort, taking the Company from a negative U.S. regulatory decision with its lead drug L-MTP-PE for osteosarcoma to a potential EU approval in less than one year. Prior to IDM Pharma, Mr. Walbert was at NeoPharm, Inc. (a biotech company focused on oncology), where he was Executive Vice President, Commercial Operations. Previously, Tim served at Abbott (NYSE: ABT) as Divisional Vice President and General Manager of Immunology and Divisional Vice President of Global Cardiovascular Marketing. There he had full P&L responsibility for the creation of Abbott's Global Immunology Franchise and led all aspects of the approval and global commercialization of HUMIRA for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). He also led the development of the full life cycle plan for HUMIRA, developing it in RA, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylsoing spondylitis and crohn's disease. HUMIRA became the most successful launch in Abbott’s history, achieving sales over $1.4 billion by 2005 and will exceed $3 billion in 2008. Tim’s team submitted the largest application (BLA) ever to CBER, the biologic division of the FDA, which was approved in only nine months. He was responsible for establishing and overseeing all aspects of marketing, sales, public relations, medical affairs, regulatory affairs, medical liaisons and global supply chain. Prior to Abbott, Tim served as Director, Celebrex North America and Arthritis Team Leader, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Canada at Searle/Pharmacia. During this time Celebrex maintained brand leadership with over $2 billion in sales in 2000. Tim was involved in FDA label negotiations for the pain indication and FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee meetings for Celebrex. He also coordinated launch, and post launch activities in Canada, Australia, and Latin America where sales grew to nearly $400 million in 2000, the most successful pharmaceutical product launched in most of those countries. He also held a number of key marketing and sales positions with Searle/Pharmacia, including the U.S. Launch of Arthrotec (a combination arthritis/pain product which generated over $200 million in first year sales in 1998) and Daypro, a arthritis/pain product which generated over $300 million in peak U.S. sales. Earlier in his career, he held sales positions at Wyeth and Searle (anti-inflammatory, GI, cardiovascular, and sleep products).
George F. Tidmarsh, M.D., Ph.D.
Founder, Science and Clinical
George is our co-founder and serves as a member of our board of directors. Dr. Tidmarsh has nearly twenty years of entrepreneurial and executive experience in biotechnology. He has been involved in numerous successful startups, FDA drug approvals, and IPO’s. Prior to launching Horizon, Dr. Tidmarsh was the founder and President of Threshold Pharmaceuticals in 2001. Threshold went public in 2005 (NASDAQ:THLD). George also held various positions at Coulter Pharmaceuticals, Inc., including chief medical officer from September 1998. During that time he played a key role in the landmark $142MM co-development deal with Smith-Kline. Prior to that he held scientific and clinical positions at SEQUUS, Gilead Sciences and SyStemix, Inc. George led fundamental scientific discovery efforts at Systemix and Gilead Sciences and also played a key role at Sequus in the FDA approval process of Doxil including the successful presentation to the FDA Oncology Drug Advisory Committee. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Stanford University School of Medicine where he also completed fellowships in Pediatric Oncology and Neonatal Intensive Care. In addition, he has been a clinical staff member at Stanford Children's Hospital and El Camino Hospital. He is an author of 18 peer-reviewed scientific papers published in leading journals.
Barry L. Golombik
Founder, Business Operations
Barry is a co-founder of Horizon. He has over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience launching successful companies across multiple industries including biotechnology, internet, consumer products, and publishing. Barry has been a founding member of four startups that have generated more than $2Billion in cumulative sales, in addition to three M&A’s, an IPO, and over $100Million in venture financing. Prior to Horizon, he helped to launch Threshold Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:THLD) in 2001, a biotech company that went public in 2005. Barry was an original member of the team that spun-off Toysrus.com in 1998 and built it from startup into a leading e-commerce site with over $400Million in annual sales. He helped co-found OddzOn Products in 1988, a sporting goods company that produced nearly $1Billion in cumulative sales (sold to Hasbro in 1998), and was a senior advisor to Palladium Interactive, a software publishing venture eventually sold to The Learning Company. Barry received his BA in Business from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Carolyn Feamster
Commercial and Business Development
Carolyn supports Horizon Therapeutics on the commercial and business development fronts. She has spent over 25 years in commercial development, marketing and business development management positions in the pharmaceutical and biotech arenas. Her experience spans many therapeutic areas, including pain and inflammation, autoimmune disease, oncology, CNS, transplantation and women’s health. She spent over 15 years at Syntex where her responsibilities included such major brands as Naprosyn and culminated in the launch of the transplant drug, Cellcept. In 1995 she joined ALZA Corporation where she headed up New Product Planning/Marketing and built a fledgling team into a department that successfully shepherded three pipeline products onto the market. Most recently, Ms Feamster served as Vice President of Business Strategy and Analysis for Clearview Projects, a company focused on providing transaction support and strategic business advice to biotech companies, where she managed projects with over 20 biotech companies. She received her BS in biochemistry from Iowa State University and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.