Dennis Burns
Mr. Burns has 25 years of management, market development, R&D and licensing experience in large and small medical device, pharmaceutical, biologicals and consumer firms including three divisions of Johnson & Johnson.
In the past five years, Mr. Burns has led medical device development projects for US and European companies in the dental, pulmonary, laparoscopic and surgical instrument fields. Most recently, Mr. Burns was Vice President/General Manager of the Internal Adhesives Division of Closure Corporation (acquired by Ethicon/J&J in June, 2005) directing a team that developed Omnex® Surgical sealant, recently launched in Europe. Previously, Mr. Burns was a Marketing Advisor to Westaim in Canada, creating the US launch strategy and opinion leader programs for ACTICOAT® antimicrobial dressing (now sold by Smith & Nephew), and for Polymer Technologies on their diabetes testing products. He has also been President of two North Carolina venture-funded start-up biotech firms, one in immunology and one, in asthma therapeutics.
Johnson & Johnson employed Mr. Burns for 15 years, where he rose to the position of Vice President, Licensing and International Development at Ortho Biotech. As a Board Member at OBI, he concluded technology-licensing deals with other Fortune 500 companies/ universities and supported the EPREX® launch in Europe (a $3 B brand). Earlier at J&J, he ran a corporate business unit in cardio-vascular and cancer imaging agents, oversaw development programs of the OKT® 3 monoclonal antibody for kidney transplantation at Ortho Pharma and ran the project and launch of ACT® dental rinse for J&J Consumer Products.
Active in the Licensing Executives Society (LES) and a Board member of the North Carolina Biosciences Industry Organization (NC BIO), Mr. Burns was educated at Manhattan College (BS, Biology) and the Yale University School of Medicine and has taken executive courses at New York University and Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.
