Sharon Morriss, Ph.D.

Chief Operating Officer

Sharon Morriss, PhD, has more than twenty years of experience building and leading clinical development teams from preclinical through to commercialization for biotechnology companies.

In her most recent position she served as SVP, Clinical Development at Lung Therapeutics (now Aileron), and in a similar capacity at Apellis Pharmaceuticals as SVP Clinical Development Operations, where her numerous responsibilities included the advancement of the company's rare disease and ophthalmology clinical portfolio. This led to the FDA approval of EMPAVELI, a targeted C3 therapy for the treatment of patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) and SYFOVRE for the treatment of geographic atrophy (GA). Dr. Morriss built and led the global clinical development operations team, creating a team to advance the diverse Clinical platform through to registrational clinical studies in hematology, nephrology, neurology, and ophthalmology. Dr. Morriss also chaired the Joint Development Committee for Apellis' global co-development alliance for systemic pegcetacoplan with Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi).

Prior to joining Apellis, Dr. Morriss worked in roles of increasing responsibility at Shire Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda) where she oversaw the Global Clinical Program teams, supporting the global development of the ophthalmology and hematology portfolios. Dr. Morriss started her career in both Clinical Scientist and CRA positions for United Therapeutics, Sanofi-Aventis, and PPD.

Dr. Morriss holds a BSc (Hons) in Zoology (Parasitology) from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and a PhD in Molecular Biology/Biochemistry from the University of Stirling, Scotland.