Biography

Mr. Riel joined the University of Rhode Island Pharmaceutical Development Institute (URI PDI) following a 40-year career in the biopharmaceutical industry leading various quality and compliance activities, including the quality oversight of contract manufacturers.  Mr. Riel holds a BS in Pharmacy from the University of Rhode Island and is a member of the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA).  Mr. Riel’s interests are in manufacturing quality and compliance of biological drug substances, drug products and parenteral products.

Most recently, Mr. Riel was the Senior Director of Quality at Voyager Therapeutics, a leading company in the development of novel AAV gene therapies for unmet neurological diseases, where he was responsible for the development of internal quality systems and quality oversight of various contract manufacturers as well as the review and approval of various CMC sections of INDs.   Prior to joining Voyager, Mr. Riel was a Senior Quality Assurance Consultant at Complya Consulting and the Director of Quality Assurance at Shire Pharmaceuticals (Takeda) leading the development, streamlining and deployment of various quality systems.  Mr. Riel also held various positions at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (Pfizer and Genetics Institute) over a 20 year period that included the development of quality systems and quality assurance for internal and external manufacturing of biological products for early- and late-phase products, inclusive of product commercialization.  Mr. Riel started his career at Baxter (Travenol labs) involved in product development, aseptic manufacturing and engineering.