The CCDC welcomes Jürgen Harter as CEO
The CCDC is pleased to announce that Dr. Jürgen Harter has accepted the position of CEO of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC). Jürgen is a highly commercially driven scientist, who has acquired more than 20 years of life sciences, information technology, and big data expertise in the biopharmaceutical domains by working at companies such as Horizon Discovery Group plc, ExcoInTouch Ltd., CambridgeSoft Ltd., Abcam plc and BioWisdom Ltd.
Jürgen holds a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge (Whiffen Lab – Prof. S. V. Ley), and carried out his postdoctoral research at the Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics Cambridge (UCC) on eScience and chemical information management (Prof. R. C. Glen/Prof. P. Murray-Rust).
In his most recent role as Global Head of IT & Informatics, Jürgen grew and managed several teams and integrated the IT infrastructure and system landscape of the various acquired biotech companies into Horizon Discovery Group plc. On a company-wide level he has been instrumental in establishing, delivering and evolving a range of complex commercial and scientific systems with corresponding processes and workflows. Some examples are Horizon’s global ERP deployment, the CRM, a new eCommerce platform and consolidated website, the gene editing cloud platform and a number of underlying databases containing bioinformatics and genomics data. In his work as Director of Business Development at ExcoInTouch, Jürgen drove the incorporation of innovative digital engagement and data capture solutions (mobile-first) into major pharmaceuticals and CROs for the efficient running of clinical trials and the handling of big clinical data. This included deployment of cloud-based mHealth platforms, placing patients at the heart of every program. While working at CambridgeSoft (later Perkin Elmer Informatics), he orchestrated a number of ELN / LIMS deals, pushed superior lab automation methods, and generally drove the sale of a suite of software products (e.g. ChemBio Office) & services. Prior to that, Jürgen headed Abcam’s scientific business development department, managing collaborations and networking activities, and setting scientific strategies for core research areas. This included the building and utilisation of an expert system to help predict commercial intelligence and scientific advances. As Senior Chemistry Analyst at BioWisdom, he engineered and automatically produced the content of a chemistry ontology, integrating it into a huge and dynamic life sciences knowledge map.
The Board of Trustees is delighted with the outcome of the search and looks forward to working with Jürgen in the coming years. Jürgen cares passionately about digital transformation, big data (particularly generating value and insights), knowledge management and scientific and business intelligence. He has worked on complex projects with most of the Top 20 pharmaceutical companies and has a wide global network of connections in both the biotech and pharma sectors. This is combined with links to information management and software development companies, where he is keen to utilise their transformative and innovative technologies to the CCDC’s advantage and to create further value and growth over the years to come.
In response to his appointment, Jürgen stated, “I would like to stress that it will be an absolute privilege to lead the CCDC into the future and to serve the world-wide science community where crystallography data and its related software play an important role. I am very happy to bring to bear all my experience and network to help the Centre and its employees, and to work on fulfilling its vision and mission. I am very excited to be joining such a great team of people with excellent science and gold-standard data behind them.”
Please join us in welcoming Jürgen to the CCDC family!
Judith Currano
Chair of Trustees
Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre
About the CCDC
The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre is dedicated to the advancement of chemistry and crystallography for the public benefit. The CCDC supports structural chemistry research through the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), the world’s comprehensive, current and curated knowledge base of small molecule crystal structures. The CSD comprises over 900,000 entries and the CCDC enhances its value to research scientists worldwide through state-of-the-art software for receptor modeling, ligand design, docking, lead optimization and formulation studies. The CSD products are delivered to research organizations worldwide, including over 1,400 academic institutions and the world’s top pharmaceutical and chemical companies.