AavantiBio names Ty Howton Chief operating officer and general counsel

AavantiBio announced the appointment of Ty Howton (pictured) as chief operating officer and general counsel. He brings to AavantiBio more than two decades of strategic, operational, and legal experience in the biopharmaceutical industry.  Mr. Howton’s appointment comes on the heels of Douglas J. Swirsky joining the company as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer.

In his most recent position, he served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Sarepta Therapeutics, where he led Company’s global legal and compliance functions and oversaw quality assurance and information technology. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, and as a member of the executive team at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, where he had general management responsibilities and oversaw all aspects of the legal and compliance departments globally, including risk management. Prior to joining Vertex, he worked at Genentech, where he served in a variety of legal roles before becoming the company’s chief healthcare compliance officer. Earlier in his career, he was a member of the Sidley Austin LLP corporate healthcare practice where he advised on corporate transactions involving life science companies and provided regulatory counsel.

“Ty brings extensive industry leadership experience along with a diverse professional skill set, and we are ecstatic to welcome him at this exciting time in our growth journey,” said Bo Cumbo, Chief Executive Officer of AavantiBio. “As a key member of the leadership team, he will be integrally involved in determining and executing on our corporate strategy as we begin to scale our commercial and manufacturing operations to bring a competitive pipeline of gene therapies to patients who need them most.”