Chief Executive Officer

The organisation

Cerulea Pty Ltd is a Melbourne-based clinical trial company established via a spin-out from The Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) with 10 million dollars of support from Breakthrough Victoria.

Embedded within CERA, an independent medical research institute ranked in the top five in the world for ophthalmology research, Cerulea is a dedicated clinical trial centre of excellence.

Establishing a dedicated eye clinical trials centre, Cerulea aims to help commercialise Victoria’s world-class medical research and health services by providing clinical trials that will give Victorians early access to new treatments, particularly in innovative gene and cell therapies. 

As well as attracting international clinical trials, Cerulea will allow local researchers and companies to conduct clinical trials in Australia instead of overseas.  This will ensure that new eye treatments and technologies developed in Australia are trialled here to benefit local patients and the research and innovation ecosystem.

The clinical trials centre will create up to 50 new high-skill jobs and give around 2,000 patients access to new treatments over ten years.  It will deliver significant benefits to Victorians, including:

• providing early access to new treatments for eye disease through clinical trials that may be years away from broader public access,
• enabling more rural and regional eye care professionals to refer their patients to clinical trials,
• developing and expanding a broader eye-care telehealth service,
• increased training opportunities for eye care professionals.

The new eye clinical trials centre is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2024.

The Key Outputs of the Centre will be:

• New clinical trials service,
• Clinical research to bring service to patients, and
• Industry-sponsored clinical trials.

CERA’s members are:

• Diabetes Australia
• Glaucoma Australia
• The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists
• The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital
• The University of Melbourne
• The Victorian Lions Foundation

The brief

CERA had been unsuccessful in securing the new CEO by their own means, so they reached out to Brooker Consulting to assist them.  We were briefed late in October and were tasked with securing a candidate who would sign a contract before the end of the year.

The process

Brooker Consulting was invited to submit a proposal, which included a blinded list of candidates from the database including deidentified titles/experience with a focus on senior leadership in clinical trials.  This was then backed up with advertising on our website and LinkedIn and searching our database and referral partners.

The outcome

Michelle Gallaher emerged as the preferred candidate via multiple recommendations from our referral partners and her skill match.  She was the stand-out candidate, due to her combination of experience in ophthalmology, as CEO of a digital health clinical trial service delivery business, and exceptional leadership experience at the c-suite and board level.  

We were able to secure the signed contract before the end of the year as desired by our client.