Dr. Colette Ranucci is Vice President, Global Large Molecules Technical Operations at Merck & Co. She has over 25 years of experience in vaccine and biologics process development, commercialization, and manufacturing. She currently leads Global Large Molecule Technical Operations, responsible for technical operations across all internal and external manufacturing sites within the biologics and vaccines network. She also serves as the Diversity and Inclusion Sponsor for Global Science, Engineering, and Commercialization. Upon joining Merck & Co., Inc. in 1992, Colette began her career in process development within Bioprocess R&D (Merck Research Laboratories), supporting the development of several early-stage product candidates. During this time, she took on positions of increasing responsibility, leading development teams across several vaccine programs. Subsequently, she focused on building organizational capabilities to support late-stage process development, technology transfers (internal and external), process validation, facility start-up, and associated filing strategy and activities for late-stage therapeutic protein and vaccine product candidates. In 2010, she helped establish the Vaccines Commercialization organization at Merck, supporting the full portfolio of Merck’s vaccine products, with a focus on expanding access to emerging markets. She then established and led Biologics External Manufacturing, building and managing a broad network of partnerships to support the manufacture of Merck’s large molecule products. She subsequently stepped in as head of Global Technical Operations for Biologics and Sterile Manufacturing before moving into her current role as head of Global Large Molecule Technical Operations.
She holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Rutgers University, where she also completed her undergraduate studies, receiving a B.S. in Biochemical Engineering and a B.A. in German.