WINSTON-Christopher Price did not stay out of work for very long.
Price, whose departure as chief executive officer of Nobex was announced on Monday, was named executive director of the Piedmont Triad research Park on Wednesday. Price had been CEO at Nobex since 1997.
Price, who holds a PhD, also will serve as a senior vice president for Wake Forest University Health Sciences and will report to Richard Dean, the health sciences group’s chief executive officer.
“With the opening of the newest building on our downtown PTRP campus later this year, we are eager to welcome Dr. Price, who brings a breadth of experience as a life sciences research scientist and a biotechnology entrepreneur,” Dean said in a statement. “For more than 15 years, he has been intimately involved in doing just the kind of innovative and successful science-based business development embodied in the PTRP strategic plan.”
Price will be tasked with implementing the master plan for the Piedmont project, including the oversight of land acquisition, infrastructure development, new building construction and tenant recruitment.
The executive director position is a newly created one.
Dean also said that Bill Dean, president of the Idealliance, which oversees the project’s development, would report to Price.
Price brings a wealth of business experience to his new role. Before joining Nobex, Price was a vice president of business development at Nova Pharmaceutical Corporation and a co-founder and CEO of biochemical firm Larex.
While at Nobex, Price helped the firm raise $58 million in venture capital.
“I could not be more excited about this opportunity,” Price said in a statement. “The vision that Dr. Dean and his team are championing is that of a self-contained urban research park, one that will be seamlessly integrated into the lifestyle and culture of the city of Winston-Salem and the surrounding communities. The PTRP may well serve as the model for future urban research parks developed as local and regional economic community development, rather than a stand-alone real estate venture.
“Wake Forest University and its outstanding professional schools bring enormous assets of people, technology innovation, and experience that will be invaluable to the success of the PTRP,” he added. “In my experience as a business person in the life sciences, I have never seen a more powerful combination of entities that are highly motivated and genuinely committed to help drive the vision of the PTRP in step with their own visions: from the support of the city of Winston-Salem and other cities of the Triad, to Forsyth County and its neighboring counties, to the state of North Carolina and the federal government.”
Price earned his PhD in biology at Syracuse University. He earned an MBA in business at the Massachusetts Institute of technology in 1987.
