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Citius Pharmaceuticals Inc.  appointed drug industry veteran Kelly Creighton as executive vice president of chemistry, manufacturing and controls, the company announced Nov. 5.

Creighton will be responsible for the global strategic regulatory and manufacturing development plans for Cranford-based Citius’s five pipeline programs.

“With two late Phase 3 trials nearing completion, we continue to prepare the organization for commercial success. Kelly is a seasoned pharmaceutical veteran whose accomplishments include more than 50 investigational new drug (IND) submissions and 20 approved market applications spanning multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, infectious disease and cell therapy,” CEO  Myron Holubiak said in a statement. “Kelly has been a longstanding advisor to the Citius team on all aspects of the regulatory pathway for Mino-Lok and we anticipate a seamless transition into this newly created in-house role. He brings an ideal blend of strategic thinking, leadership skills and deep global regulatory and product development expertise, which he will apply to our entire clinical program as we continue to develop the Citius pipeline.”

Creighton joins Citius from Clinipace Worldwide, a global contract research organization where he served as vice president of regulatory and strategic development. He has nearly 20 years of experience in biopharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals and advanced therapies. During that time Creighton has provided comprehensive regulatory strategy assessments, development plans and regulatory dossiers for programs across a wide range of therapeutic areas, according to his hiring announcement.

His product development experience extends to biologics/biosimilars, small molecule, gene and cellular therapies, cancer immunotherapies, live oncolytic biotherapeutics, and microbiome therapies.

In September, Citius Pharmaceuticals acquired a license from Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories for a late phase 3 oncology immunotherapy drug, an improved formulation of previously U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved ONTAK, which was created by Eisai Co. Ltd. in 2016.