Martha A. Brumfield, PhD, Named Arizona Bioscience Leader of the Year
Martha A. Brumfield, PhD, of the Critical Path Institute, will be honored as the Arizona Bioscience Leader of the Year @AZBio Awards on Oct. 2, 2019.
The Arizona Bioindustry Association (AZBio) today announced that Martha A. Brumfield, PhD, Special Advisor to the CEO and past President and CEO at the Critical Path Institute (C-Path), will be honored as the Jon W. McGarity Arizona Bioscience Leader of the Year at the 2019 AZBio Awards on October 2, 2019, at the Phoenix Convention Center.
“You probably know someone who is waiting for a cure. Most of us do. It can take over 15 years and a billion dollars or more to bring a new life-saving or life-changing treatment to the people who are waiting for it,” shared AZBio President and CEO Joan Koerber-Walker. “Throughout her career, Dr. Brumfield has worked to bring new, safe, and effective treatments to market for patients who are waiting.”
Hope for Cures
During a twenty-year tenure at Pfizer, she led global teams that supported lifecycle pharmaceutical research, development, and commercialization through creation and implementation of regulatory strategies and quality assurance oversight. Brumfield also played a key role in managing the broader company relationships with global regulators, trade associations, academics, and others on regulatory policy issues. She served on corporate governance initiatives, including the planning and implementation of mergers and acquisitions, and led her departments through these periods of significant change.
In 2010, Brumfield became a consultant to C-Path in Tucson, Arizona, serving as Director of International and Regulatory Programs. In 2013, she was named C-Path’s president and CEO, and served in that role for six years.
A nonprofit, public-private partnership with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that was created under the auspices of the FDA’s Critical Path Initiative program in 2005, C-Path’s mission is to act as a catalyst in the development of new approaches to advance medical innovation and regulatory science.
Over the last six years, Brumfield and the C-Path team have expanded the organization’s worldwide reach, revenue streams, and positive impact on pharmaceutical and medical product development, all the while maintaining C-Path’s stellar reputation and credibility. The organization serves as a reliable, trusted, neutral third party that brings together stakeholders across the spectrum of industry, academia, government, patient and disease organizations to work together in a pre-competitive consortium model to drive the development of innovative tools and methods that help to de-risk decision making in the development and regulatory process.
C-Path now leads 18 active global consortia and programs. They have more than 70 employees, most in its Tucson office, with additional staff in multiple remote locations, and a new European headquarters recently launched in Ireland in order to work more efficiently with its many European-based partners, including the European Medicines Agency (Europe’s FDA equivalent).
When Brumfield shared with her team and C-Path’s Board that she was ready to plan for a leadership change, a global search resulted in the appointment of C-Path’s new President and CEO, Joseph Scheeren, PharmD, a highly regarded global leader in the pharmaceutical realm, to be her successor. She currently serves as a special advisor to Scheeren and has initiated her phased retirement.
“Martha has been integrally instrumental in advancing biomedical research and regulatory science in Arizona and beyond,” said C-Path Board Chairman Timothy R. Franson, MD. “Her commitment to fostering collaboration across multiple industries to improve and accelerate drug development and the regulatory approval process has had a lasting impact on patients everywhere. She is a world-class leader, and on behalf of everyone at C-Path, we congratulate Martha on this prestigious honor and her distinguished career.”
The Jon W. McGarity Arizona Bioscience Leader of the Year Award honors the person in Arizona who provided the most outstanding leadership that contributed significantly to the development of the State’s bioindustry and/or recognition of the advancement of bioscience in Arizona.
For her leadership in the development of health innovations that accelerate the pace and reduce the costs of medical product development, as well as for her commitment and skills in building collaborative solutions that will ultimately benefit patients and their families, Dr. Martha A. Brumfield is the 2019 Jon W. McGarity Arizona Bioscience Leader of the Year.
