Ryan Thurston

Ryan Thurston has a diverse work experience spanning multiple industries. Ryan started their career as a Manufacturing Associate at Alidex, Inc. in 2000, where they worked until 2002. Ryan then transitioned to Ace Hardware, initially as a Sales Associate from 1998 to 2002, and later as a Retail Manager from 2002 to 2004. In 2005, they joined Dendreon as a Manufacturing Associate I and concurrently worked as a Sales Associate at REI until 2009.

In 2006, Thurston joined Amgen as a Manufacturing Associate in the upstream clinical manufacturing group. Ryan gained expertise in cGMP guidelines, change control, and computer system validation during their tenure. Ryan advanced to Senior Manufacturing Associate in 2008, where they were responsible for the manufacturing of monoclonal antibody clinical trial material. From 2009 to 2012, Thurston worked as a Senior Associate at Amgen, conducting experiments for upstream process development using the CHO expression system. Afterwards, they became an Associate Scientist at Amgen, focusing on upstream process development for antibody processes in the CHO cell system. Thurston played a key role in developing the ATF small-scale model for Amgen as well as clone screening for various projects.

In 2014, Thurston joined Takeda as a Scientist II. Ryan worked on process development activities related to the Norovirus Vaccine candidate and acted as the upstream technical lead for the early transfer activities to Takeda's site in Hikari, Japan. Ryan was also involved in a global assignment in Japan for two years to support the transfer process and full-scale GMP manufacturing. Thurston's responsibilities included project management duties to facilitate communication between US and Japan based teams.

Thurston then moved to Seqirus in 2019, assuming the role of Associate Director, Upstream Technical Development. Ryan worked in this position until their recent move to HilleVax in 2021, where they currently serve as the Director of Manufacturing Science & Technology.

Ryan Thurston received their Bachelor of Science degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Washington from 1996 to 2000. Following this, they pursued a Master's degree in Pharmaceutical Bioengineering at the same university from 2010 to 2013.