About Us

Niels Borgstein, M.D., was named Senior Vice President of Late-Stage Clinical Development in 2021. In this role, Dr. Borgstein leads a team of clinical development physicians and clinical research scientists as well as the Medical Writing, Biostatistics, and Drug Safety & Pharmacovigilance functions.

Dr. Borgstein has more than 20 years of international clinical research and drug development experience ranging from early translational research to full development and post-marketing across numerous therapeutic areas, including oncology, sexual health, urology, bone metabolism, musculoskeletal diseases, and gastrointestinal (GI) related diseases. Prior to joining Alkermes, Dr. Borgstein served as Vice President and Head of Clinical Development at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career, Dr. Borgstein held various leadership positions at SOTIO, Millennium/Takeda Oncology, Acceleron Pharma, Inc. and Pfizer.

Dr. Borgstein received his medical degree from the University Medical Center of Groningen in The Netherlands.

Iain Brown serves as Chief Financial Officer of Alkermes. In his role, he leads the management of the Finance organization as well as the Business Planning, Procurement and Strategic Sourcing functions. Mr. Brown is a Chartered Accountant with more than 24 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Alkermes in 2003, he managed EMD Serono’s North America financial operations. Mr. Brown received a Bachelor of Science in Business Studies from the University of Bradford, England.

Grace Doyle is responsible for Quality at Alkermes, incorporating the Quality Assurance, Quality Control, and Validation functions at the company’s manufacturing sites in Athlone, Ireland and Wilmington, Ohio. Her role also includes responsibility for Quality oversight of development- and clinical-related activities at the company’s Waltham, Massachusetts site and the external network. Ms. Doyle joined Alkermes as Quality Assurance Director of the FDA/EMA-licenced Athlone site upon completion of the merger between Elan Drug Technologies (EDT) and Alkermes, Inc. in September 2011. Prior to joining Alkermes, Ms. Doyle was responsible for Quality-related functions at Bristol Myers Squibb and biotechnology company GeneMedix. Ms. Doyle holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Dublin City University and a Master of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology from Trinity College Dublin.

Heather Faulds was named senior vice president and Head of Regulatory Affairs & Knowledge Management Services in June 2020. In this role, Ms. Faulds is responsible for providing regulatory oversight and strategic development for both development candidates and commercial products. Ms. Faulds leads Regulatory Strategy, Advertising & Promotion, Regulatory Operations, CMC Regulatory, and Knowledge Management Services, and is responsible for overseeing the developmental regulatory approval and post-approval processes, including post-approval regulatory support for marketing activities and interfacing with alliance partners. Ms. Faulds reports into Craig Hopkinson, Executive Vice President, Research and Development and CMO of Alkermes, and sits on the company’s Executive Management Committee.

Ms. Faulds has more than 20 years of experience leading global regulatory strategies across all phases of development, as well as multiple disease areas and therapeutic modalities. Prior to joining Alkermes, she was SVP, Regulatory Sciences and Quality at Scholar Rock where she led multiple functions spanning Regulatory Affairs, GxP Compliance, Pharmacovigilance, and Medical Writing and was responsible for regulatory strategies across clinical programs for rare diseases and immuno-oncology. Prior to joining Scholar Rock, Ms. Faulds spent 12 years at Biogen in roles of increasing responsibility across CMC Regulatory and Global Regulatory Strategy. While there, her leadership paved the way for the expedited and unprecedented global regulatory submissions and approval of the first treatment for spinal muscular atrophy.

Ms. Faulds earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University at Albany, SUNY and holds a Master of Regulatory Affairs and Health Policy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.

David Gaffin serves as Alkermes’ in-house Chief Legal Officer, managing the operations of the legal department and the Chief Compliance Officer. Mr. Gaffin was most recently the U.S. General Counsel of Alkermes. Prior to joining the company in 2005, Mr. Gaffin held the role of Assistant General Counsel at Biogen Inc., where he provided legal counsel on product-related matters and negotiated collaboration and licensing transactions. Mr. Gaffin received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College, a Master of Business Administration from J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a Juris Doctor from Northwestern University School of Law.

Thomas Harvey leads the information technology function and is the Chief Information Officer for Alkermes. Mr. Harvey has been at Alkermes for more than 13 years and oversees IT for the enterprise. He started as the Director of IT in 2005 and increased his responsibilities due to aggressive growth at the company where he was promoted to vice president. He directed the successful integration of the IT technologies and business solutions during the merger of Alkermes and Elan Drug Technologies.

Prior to joining Alkermes, Mr. Harvey held several IT roles over the course of 16 years, where he reported to the President and General Manager of Abbott Diabetes Care. Mr. Harvey serves as an Advisory Board Member for the Boston CIO Executive Leadership Summit. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Craig Hopkinson, M.D., is responsible for evolving and executing the clinical development programs for the company’s pipeline of drug candidates. Dr. Hopkinson has more than 20 years of experience building and leading clinical development organizations and medical affairs groups in the biopharmaceutical industry. He has led multidisciplinary development teams in multiple therapeutic areas, including neuroscience, oncology, gastroenterology, infectious diseases, cardiovascular conditions, inflammation, genetic diseases, hematology and neurodegenerative diseases, and has extensive knowledge of clinical study design and the regulatory landscape. Most recently, Dr. Hopkinson held the position of Senior Vice President and Head of Global Medical Affairs for Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Prior to this role, Dr. Hopkinson held various executive management positions at Eisai Pharmaceuticals, including President of Eisai Value Maximization Systems, President and Chief Medical Officer of the Frontier Product Creation Unit, and Vice President of Medical Affairs, Oncology. In addition, Dr. Hopkinson served in leadership positions at Elan Pharmaceuticals, Actelion Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer. Dr. Hopkinson completed his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at the University of the Orange Free State in South Africa.

Blair Jackson serves as Chief Operating Officer of Alkermes, with responsibility for the global Operations, Quality, Finance, Information Technology, and Corporate Planning functions.

Mr. Jackson has more than 20 years of diverse scientific and business development experience within the pharmaceutical industry. Since joining Alkermes in 1999, Mr. Jackson has served in a variety of roles in both a scientific and corporate capacity, including most recently as Senior Vice President of Corporate Planning. He currently serves on the board of directors of Synchronicity Pharma. Mr. Jackson received a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from the University of Calgary, a Bachelor of Arts in Chemical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Alberta, and a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mike Landine oversees Alkermes’ corporate development activities that include Corporate Communications, Investor Relations, Patient Engagement, Information Technology and operations at the Massachusets facility. Prior to leading corporate development, Mr. Landine served as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Alkermes from March 1988 until June 1998. Mr. Landine is a member of the Board of Directors of Kopin Corporation, a publicly traded manufacturer of components for electronic products. He also previously served on the Board of Directors of GTC Biotherapeutics, a biotechnology company, from 2005 to 2010. Mr. Landine received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Bentley University and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Todd Nichols leads the sales, marketing, and health systems organizations at Alkermes and is responsible for setting and delivering against the commercial strategy to assure broad awareness of and access to our medicines. Prior to joining Alkermes, Mr. Nichols held the position of Vice President, Marketing and Sales, Inflammation and Immunology at Celgene, where he was responsible for developing and managing all aspects of U.S. commercial planning, brand P&L, strategy development, go-to-market modeling and launch execution for ozanimod. Mr. Nichols began his career in 1995 at Schering-Plough (acquired by Merck in 2009), where he held a variety of sales and marketing positions across multiple therapeutic franchises. While at Merck, Mr. Nichols served in numerous senior roles including Vice President and Head of the U.S. Vaccine Business Unit. Mr. Nichols joined Biogen in 2014 as Vice President, U.S. Sales and Field Operations, and achieved record sales for three consecutive years. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in accounting from Elon University.

Peter Norman leads the U.S. Policy and Government Relations function for the company, which includes federal and state initiatives as well as programs with professional and patient organizations. Prior to joining Alkermes in 2013, Mr. Norman was the head of the Washington, D.C. office for Eisai, Inc. In addition, he’s held senior positions for Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Novo Nordisk and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). Mr. Norman worked on public policy and regulatory strategies not only for Alzheimer’s disease, obesity and diabetes pharmaceutical products, but also healthcare reform and reimbursement issues. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Adrian College and a Juris Doctor from the University of Toledo College of Law.

Declan O’Connor is responsible for Alkermes’ manufacturing operations at the Athlone, Ireland and Wilmington, Ohio sites as well as its commercial and clinical supply chain functions. Mr. O’Connor is responsible for the strategic development of operations activities and site infrastructure development. He joined Alkermes as Vice President and General Manager in Athlone upon completion of the merger between Elan Drug Technologies (EDT) and Alkermes, Inc. in September 2011. In this role, he was responsible for the company’s FDA/EMA licensed multi-product development, manufacturing and packaging operations in Ireland. Mr. O’Connor held a number of senior operations positions for Elan including Vice President of Finance, Head of Global Supply Chain and Head of Finance U.S. Operations. Mr. O’Connor is a chartered accountant and a graduate of University College Dublin, Ireland.

Kanchan Relwani M.D. serves as Head of Medical Affairs of Alkermes. In this role, Dr. Relwani leads the Medical Affairs organization, including oversight of the Medical Strategy, Medical Operations & Alliances, Heath Economics and Outcomes Research, Medical Information and the Medical Science Liaison functions.

Dr. Relwani joined Alkermes in 2017 and has more than 10 years of experience building and leading successful medical affairs teams within the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Alkermes, Dr. Relwani was the Head of Medical and Clinical Affairs at Stallergenes Greer and held roles of increasing leadership responsibility in Global Medical Affairs at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. She has experience supporting clinical development programs and leading launch efforts in multiple therapeutic areas, including neuroscience, psychiatry, infectious diseases, oncology, pulmonary diseases, and immunology. She received a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery from Pune University in India, as well as a Diploma in Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery from the National Institute of Ophthalmology in India. After receiving her medical degree, Dr. Relwani worked in a number of ophthalmology-related roles, including a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Stephen Schiavo was named senior vice president of Human Resources in June 2020 after joining Alkermes in 2018. Mr. Schiavo leads Alkermes’ human resources function, with responsibility for global compensation and benefits, talent acquisition, HR business partnering, employee engagement, organization and leadership development, and diversity & inclusion. Mr. Schiavo reports into Richard Pops, President and CEO of Alkermes, and sits on the company’s Executive Management Committee.

Mr. Schiavo has more than 18 years of HR Business Partner and HR leadership experience helping to develop and scale organizations, teams and individuals. Prior to joining Alkermes, Mr. Schiavo was VP, Human Resources for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where he served as the Head of their HR Business Partner function. While there, Mr. Schiavo held roles across the business and was instrumental in many aspects of their growth and evolution from a small, R&D-stage organization to a leading, global biotech. Prior to joining Vertex, Mr. Schiavo worked in the Financial Services industry where he held a number of senior human resource positions at companies including Prudential Financial and Cigna.

Mr. Schiavo earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Boston University and a Master of Industrial and Labor Relations degree from Cornell University.

Sondra Smyrnios was named senior vice president of Clinical Operations at Alkermes in July 2019. In this role, Ms. Smyrnios is responsible for providing supervisory leadership of clinical program management, data management, clinical programming, data sciences, global clinical services, and clinical outsourcing. Her additional responsibilities include resource planning, line management, and departmental growth, as well as oversight of trial execution, clinical compliance, outsourcing strategy, CRO and vendor strategic partnerships, and vendor rebate/discount negotiations. Ms. Smyrnios reports into Craig Hopkinson, Chief Medical Officer at Alkermes, and sits on the company’s Executive Management Committee.

Prior to accepting the position of senior vice president, Ms. Smyrnios served as vice president of Clinical Operations at Alkermes and has held a variety of other leadership positions throughout her tenure with the company. Notably, she has grown Alkermes’ Clinical Operations department from eight to 55 employees and negotiated strategic provider discounts and risk-share agreements, resulting in over $35M in savings in five years.

Ms. Smyrnios’ career has spanned over 25 dynamic and diverse years within the pharmaceutical industry. Before joining Alkermes in 2009, she served as senior vice president of Omnicom Systems Inc. In 2007, she founded a start-up company, Evia Clinical Services, LLC, that focused on servicing small pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Her company’s success led to it being acquired by UMC, Inc. Earlier in her career, Ms. Smyrnios held positions with Kos Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, Sanofi and Eli Lilly.

Ms. Smyrnios earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Concordia University in Montreal and holds her master’s from McGill University in Montreal. Ms. Smyrnios speaks fluent English and French and her work has been published in scientific journals.