Imara Inc. announced that Kevin B. Johnson, Ph.D., MBA, has been appointed Senior Vice President of Regulatory and Quality. Dr. Johnson joins the company from Sucampo Pharmaceuticals and Vtesse, Inc. where he served as Vice President, Global Head of Regulatory and Quality, and Vice President, Global Regulatory Affairs, respectively. Dr. Johnson brings more than 25 years of experience guiding the regulatory and product development strategies for biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in all stages of development and across a range of therapeutic areas. While at Sucampo and Vtesse, Dr. Johnson led global regulatory strategy and implementation for rare disease development programs targeting Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC), which received Breakthrough Therapy designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Promising Innovative Medicine (PIM) designation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Previously, he served as Director, Global Regulatory Affairs for Rare Diseases and Gene Therapies at GlaxoSmithKline as a member of the international team for the European approval of the gene therapy Strimvelis® for ADA-SCID. Dr. Johnson was also Principal Regulatory Consultant for the successful Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation request for a retinal gene therapy product at PharmaKnowledge.