Cynthia Pussinen

Cynthia Pussinen has more than 25 years’ experience leading global organizations and high performing teams in the life sciences industry. Her expertise spans the drug development continuum from research through commercialization. She has led the development, licensure, commercialization and subsequent delivery to patients, of more than fifteen new medical therapies for patients globally, including Eraxis® (anidulafungin), ZMAX® (azithromycin) and of LUXTURNA® (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl), the first gene therapy approved in both the United States and the European Union.

Cynthia has served on the Drexel University Solutions Advisory Board, and as a Board Director for Spark Therapeutics UK Ltd. and Spark Therapeutics Ireland Ltd. She is currently a Board Advisor for an enterprise software and solutions focused company valued at more than $1.5B. Cynthia recently departed from her role as the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) for Spark Therapeutics, Inc., a member of the Roche Group.

Prior to joining Spark in 2021, Cynthia served as the Global Vice President and General Manager, Life Sciences and Specialty Chemicals for Honeywell International, Inc. Cynthia spent 6 years with Ipsen Biomeasure and Ipsen Biosciences, the U.S. R&D focused subsidiaries of Ipsen. There she served as President | CEO.

Early in her career Cynthia spent more than 18 years at Pfizer in a variety of increasingly responsible leadership roles across various functional areas. She earned a Master of Science in R&D management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, with a minor in engineering from the University of Connecticut. Cynthia is lean six sigma certified, is recognized as a mentor through the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) and was honored by WEST (Women in the Enterprise of Science and Technology) as a recipient of their Giving Back award.