A life so beautifully lived deserves to be beautifully remembered. Today, we share with you the loss of a Founding Board Director of the International Biomedical Research Alliance and former CEO and Executive Chairman of Emergent BioSolutions, Fuad El-Hibri. Fuad died peacefully at home on the morning of April 23, 2022, surrounded by those he loved most his family. Our most sincere sympathy goes out to his wife, Nancy, his three adoring children, grandchildren, and his many friends and colleagues.
In 2003, upon hearing about an innovative program developed at the National Institutes of Health to support graduate training for Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. students seeking to become physician-scientists, Fuad focused his attention on building and supporting the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program. To this end, he was a founding member of the not-for-profit, the International Biomedical Research Alliance (Alliance), which supports the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program (Scholars Program). He served on the Alliance Board of Directors since its inception in 2005. For the next 17 years, Fuad would play an integral role as a leader in advocating for funding for the Scholars Program and the expansion of participating laboratories in Institutes and Centers across the NIH. Committed to excellence in all activities to which he devoted his time, he held great pride in the exceptional achievements of students and alumni of the Scholars Program and was unapologetic about trumpeting their success. In recent years, he devoted himself to addressing the dire need for affordable graduate housing near the NIH campus that would attract the most promising trainees and early career scientists to train and remain at the NIH. He did all of this out of a desire to grow and enhance the biomedical research ecosystem in the United States and abroad.
Fuad founded Emergent BioSolutions (then BioPort) in 1998 with a single product, BioThrax® (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed), and took the company public in 2006. Having served as CEO for almost 14 years until March 2012, and Executive Chairman for 10 years until his retirement in March 2022, Fuad was instrumental in growing the company’s portfolio to its current suite of marketed and procured products for a variety of public health threats, including medical countermeasures for anthrax, smallpox, botulism, and chemical warfare agents, as well as overseeing the company’s role in fighting the opioid crisis. Under Fuad’s leadership, Emergent BioSolutions delivered over 120 million dose-equivalents of the COVID-19 vaccine and built a trusted partnership with the U.S. Government, including supplying anthrax and smallpox vaccines for the military and inventory for U.S. biodefense. In addition, his focus on quality manufacturing of complex biologics resulted in a full suite of CDMO development services, drug substance and drug product manufacturing, and packaging.
“Much of the Alliance’s progress in supporting the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program can be attributed to Fuad’s generosity of spirit and far-sighted judgment. He will be sorely missed for his good counsel and advice, but most of all, his always cordial and gracious humanity” said Alliance Chairman Stephen McLean.
The International Biomedical Research Alliance asks that you consider contributing to their efforts earmarked for Phase I development of student housing by contributing in Fuad’s name to the International Biomedical Research Alliance, 9101 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, Maryland 20814 or alternatively to the El-Hibri Foundation at 1420 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036.