Randall Hyer

Chief Executive Officer at Merlin Biotech

Speaker

Dr. Hyer has 20+ years’ development experience in biotechnology with vaccines, biologics, and biosimilars working at Merck, MSD (KK), Novartis/Sandoz, Dynavax, and Moderna. As the Senior Vice President for Global Medical at Moderna, Dr. Hyer helped develop, communicate, and manage the global rollout of the Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. In 2017, he was pivotal in engaging the scientific, medical and policy communities to achieve FDA (and later EMA) approval of a new adult hepatitis B vaccine (HEPLISAV-B®), the first vaccine using a truly novel adjuvant. Beyond development, his responsibilities have included managing large teams, directing vaccine and pharmaceutical safety programs, overseeing oncology and vaccine clinical operations, running data management and statistical teams, engaging scientists and policymakers, and managing crises. Dr. Hyer is Board-certified in general preventive medicine and public health and earned his MD from Duke, MPH from Harvard and trained at Walter Reed. He received the DPhil (or PhD) from the University of Oxford researching the genetics of juvenile diabetes. His studies won the NIH "Outstanding Research Award for Clinical Trainees" and are widely cited. At Oxford University, Dr. Hyer founded (and sold) the biotechnology company, Alpha-Plus DNA.