The departure of a number of CEOs is the prevailing theme that kicks off this week’s installment: In a stunner,
Alnylam
CEO
John Maraganore
announced
that
Yvonne Greenstreet
will be his successor at the end of the year. Maraganore, the Cambridge, MA biotech’s founding chief executive since 2002 who has helped invigorate the RNAi space, will step into a consulting role until March 31 and maintain his presence in the company as a member of the scientific advisory board.
Maraganore told our John Carroll a couple years back that retirement wasn’t on the table, but instead Alnylam will be led by Greenstreet, who
replaced
current
Sage
CEO
Barry Greene
as the company’s president in August 2020 and is also COO.
This week, Alnylam unspooled positive data for what the biotech hopes will become its fourth RNAi approval with its drug
vutrisiran
for polyneuropathy associated with hereditary transthyretin-mediated (hATTR) amyloidosis.
Lumasiran
(marketed as
Oxlumo
)
was approved
in November 2020.
Meanwhile, the search is underway for a permanent CEO
to replace
Barry Labinger
at cancer-focused
Checkmate Pharmaceuticals
, while board member
Alan Fuhrman
steps up to the plate on an interim basis. Labinger succeeded founder and current CSO
Art Krieg
in December 2018 and
steered
Checkmate to a $75 million IPO in July 2020 with a heavy reliance on its TLR9 agonist
vidutolimod
(CMP-001), but the stock price has dwindled significantly since its Nasdaq debut. Fuhrman, the CFO for
Amplyx
from 2017-20, is a member of the board of directors at
SpringWorks Therapeutics
and
Esperion
.
Starting Nov. 8, there will also be a change at the top of South San Francisco T cell engager biotech
Harpoon Therapeutics
, with
Julie Eastland
succeeding
Jerry McMahon
as CEO. McMahon, who announced his resignation this week, had been Harpoon’s chief executive since December 2016 and presided over a company in decline after its prostate cancer candidate
HPN424
massively underwhelmed in a Phase I/IIa study, gutting the stock price. Before accepting her first CEO job, Eastland held dual roles as COO and CFO at
ReCode Therapeutics
and currently has board seats at
Graybug Vision
and
Dynavax
.
Lastly in this group,
Jed Latkin
has resigned
from his three-pronged responsibilities of CEO, CFO and COO at Dublin, OH-based
Navidea Biopharmaceuticals
, a biotech concentrating on precision immunodiagnostic agents. Navidea has set up an Office of the CEO until a successor is named, comprised of three board members and two execs: chairman
Alexander Cappello
, vice chair
John Scott
,
Thomas Farb
(who was
just appointed
to the board with
Agnieszka Winkler
effective Oct. 7), CMO
Michael Rosol
, and VP of finance and administration
Erika Eves
.
→
CRISPR Therapeutics
chief commercial officer
Philippe Drouet
has exited stage left
to take on
the CEO job at
BioTheryX
, a protein degradation outfit based in San Diego that
gathered up
a Series E round in May. Drouet didn’t stick around at CRISPR for very long — he was named CCO in February after five years at
Merck
, where he had been integral to the launch of
Keytruda
as the drug giant’s SVP, oncology global marketing & market access. While with
Novartis
, Drouet wore several hats, from head of oncology marketing in Canada to VP of the US hematology franchise.
→ Swedish oncology player
Medivir
has tapped
AstraZeneca
alum
Jens Lindberg
as CEO while
Magnus Christensen
stays on as interim CEO until Lindberg takes over “within six months,” according to the release. Lindberg, the acting CEO and VP of commercial at
Sedana Medical
, held a series of posts in nearly a quarter century at AstraZeneca that culminated in his role as VP of oncology in the Nordic-Baltic region. There’s been a revolving door lately at the top spot at Medivir after
Uli Hacksell
replaced
Christine Lind
in 2018 and the company slashed 60 other jobs in the process. In September 2020,
Yilmaz Mahshid
became Medivir’s CEO but bolted abruptly to take the CFO job at
Egetis Therapeutics
.
→ The FDA’s approval of
Fabrazyme
in March
forced
lentiviral gene therapy outfit
Avrobio
to go back to the drawing board with its own Fabry disease drug, so it would seem the
promotion
of
Essra Ridha
to CMO is an important step toward giving
AVR-RD-01
the sturdy footing it needs. Prior to her previous responsibilities as Avrobio’s VP, clinical development, Ridha was senior medical director, clinical sciences, gene edited cell therapy during almost two years at
Sangamo
. She also had a three-year run at
GlaxoSmithKline
, taking on the role of clinical development director, cell & gene therapy, rare diseases.
→ In another case of the band getting back together,
Loretta Itri
has been named
CMO at
Aadi Bioscience
, which
reverse merged
with
Aerpio Therapeutics
in May and where ex-
Immunomedics
CEO
Behzad Aghazadeh
is a board member. Like Aadi’s newly-arrived COO,
Brendan Delaney
, Itri is an Immunomedics alum, having been CMO when
Gilead
opened up the pocketbook
to purchase
the biotech for $21 billion last year. She’s also served as EVP of global health sciences and regulatory affairs at
The Medicines Company
.
→ Beginning its odyssey to solve the transcription factor puzzle with an $82 million
Series A
in May,
Third Rock
biotech
Flare Therapeutics
has selected
Daphne Karydas
as COO and CFO, while
Michaela Bowden
gets the nod as SVP of biology and translation. Karydas is an
Allergan
alum in corporate financial planning and investor relations who just completed a year as CFO of
Syndax Pharmaceuticals
, and Bowden spent the last three years at
Bristol Myers Squibb
, leaving the drug giant as executive director of translational biology.
→ Lowell, MA neuro biotech
Alcyone Therapeutics
broke through in June with a $23 million
Series A
and a game plan to tackle Rett syndrome out of the gates. CEO
PJ Anand
has now surrounded himself with four new execs in this effort, with CMO and global head of R&D
Ottavio Vitolo
leading off
. The former head of neuromuscular clinical research at
Pfizer
, Vitolio co-founded
Vitem Therapeutics
and was CMO and R&D chief at
Relmada Therapeutics
from 2018-20.
Who else is joining Vitolo?
Credit Suisse
and
Cowen
vet
Ravi Mehrotra
(CFO and head of strategy) recently worked with
Umer Raffat
and
Josh Schimmer
as senior managing director of
Evercore
’s healthcare research team.
Susan D’Costa
(EVP and global head of technology) comes to Alcyone from
Thermo Fisher
, where she was senior director, technical program design. And
Rachel Salzman
(EVP of portfolio, external affairs & development) founded and was president and CEO of CNS gene therapy outfit
SwanBio
.
→
Making its push
into the European market,
Amylyx
has appointed
Stéphanie Hoffmann-Gendebien
as head, general manager in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Hoffmann-Gendebien, a longtime
Genzyme
staffer, was a managing director and founding partner at
GH Partners
since 2019, when she left rare disease biotech
Clementia Pharmaceuticals
as VP, general manager, EMEA after
Ipsen
snapped it up
for $1.3 billion. Co-led by
Justin Klee
and
Josh Cohen
, Amylyx said in April that they planned on submitting a marketing application to the EMA by the end of the year for its ALS candidate
AMX0035
, and after the FDA initially balked at an NDA, the agency did a 180
on the request
in September.
→ Focusing on the blood-brain barrier,
Travecta Therapeutics
named
Charles Ryan
president and CEO in June after helming
Neurotrope
. Ryan
has now fleshed out
his leadership team with a big batch of execs and board members, starting with CMO and head of R&D
Donald Manning
, a Novartis and
Celgene
vet who was CMO at
Shionogi
and then
Adynxx
from 2012-20.
Peter Milligan
(CFO) was previously the finance chief at
Exelis
,
G&W Laboratories
and most recently
Melinta
, a role currently held by
Susan Blum
.
Peter Tate
(head of Singapore operations and senior director, business development), a one-time Pfizer scientist, wrapped up a 10-year association with
EMD Serono
in 2020 as the
Merck KGaA
sub’s associate director, pharmaceutical technologies.
Peter Honig
jumps to Travecta’s scientific advisory board after retiring from Pfizer as head of global regulatory affairs and group head of development for China and Japan.
Finally, Ryan will occupy a seat on Travecta’s board of directors alongside former Allergan exec
June Bray
,
Ivan Gergel
,
Pascal Heberling
and
Bob Huang
.
→ You may recall
Triumvira
’s leadership moves in April, when the
Paul Lammers
-led T cell biotech
named
Teresa McRoberts
as CFO and promoted
Andreas Bader
and
Jon Irvin
to CSO and VP of finance, respectively. Triumvira
has found
a CMO this week, and it’s
Deyaa Adib
, who was just the acting CMO for
Rain Therapeutics
and has been VP of late-stage development at
Blueprint Medicines
. A
Sanofi
and
Astellas
vet, Adib served as
Baxalta
’s global therapeutics head for solid tumors. In August 2020, Triumvira
nabbed
$55 million in a Series A that “will give us a nice runway to do a lot of fun stuff,” as Lammers said at the time, with its T cell antigen coupler (TAC) technology.
→
Onchilles Pharma
has hired a slew of new faces
to its leadership team with the appointments of
Christopher Twitty
(CSO);
Ingrid Joseph
(SVP, preclinical development); and
Sonia Feau
(director of biology). Twitty brings with him experience from his time at
Bayer
,
Cell Genesys
,
Tocagen
and
OncoSec Medical
. Meanwhile, Joseph served as VP of pharmacology and toxicology at
Synthorx
; senior director of pharmacology and bioimaging at Astellas; and director of oncopharmacology at
Biogen
. Last, but not least, Feau joins from
Oncorus
, where she served as associate director of immunology. Prior to that stint, Feau was with Merck and
Merrimack Pharmaceuticals.
→ German CDMO
Rentschler Biopharma
, which will have a presence at the
Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult
in the UK
by next year
,
has appointed
Robert Panting
as general manager of Rentschler ATMP, Center of Excellence for Cell and Gene Therapy. Prior to Rentschler, Panting spent a decade at
Fujifilm Diosynth
Biotechnologies
, where he most recently served as president for program management and sales & operations planning.
→
Bryan Jennings
is making his way over to
Noxxon Pharma
as the company’s new CFO. Jennings brings aboard experience from his time as CFO at
Peptilogics
,
KAHR
Bio
,
Beren
Therapeutics
,
Rational Vaccines
and
ChemomAb
. In addition to those stints, Jennings was CFO and CEO at
Vista Capital Advisors
and was with
Morgan Stanley
as managing director, head of capital markets and risk management.
→ After
just bringing aboard
Mason Freeman
as EVP, clinical development last week,
CinCor Pharma
has now added
Terry Coelho
to its ranks as EVP, CFO and chief business development officer. Coelho joins the Cincinnati-based biotech from
BioDelivery Services International
, where she served as EVP and CFO. Prior to that, Coelho was CFO of
Balchem
Corp
, CFO and COO of
Diversey
, and held leadership roles with Novartis.
→
PepGen
, the Boston-based Oxford spinout that
received
$112.5 million in Series B financing back in August for its lead programs in muscular dystrophy,
has appointed
Noel Donnelly
as CFO. Donnelly has spent much of his career at
Shire
, where he has served as VP, R&D business and strategy and, most recently, as head of R&D finance.
→ Whole Lotta love:
Lotta Ferm
will be an interim CFO no more at Swedish cancer biotech
Immunicum
,
taking over
on a permanent basis starting Monday. Ferm initially took the interim job on Feb. 1 after a string of CFO posts at such Swedish companies as Medivir and
Doktor24
. In March, Immunicum
filled
its CMO vacancy with ex-
Kiadis
medical chief
Jeroen Rovers
.
→ Pfizer alum
David Gray
has signed on
to be CSO at
Inscopix
, a company out of Palo Alto focused on treating neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases using its brain mapping platform. After 15 years at Pfizer, the last three of those as a senior director in neuro, Gray then moved to
Cerevel
as VP in charge of development for its Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s programs.
→ New Jersey drug discovery company
Vyant Bio
, focused on neurology and oncology,
has pegged
Robert Fremeau
as CSO.
Camp4
turned to Fremeau — a former scientific director in neuroscience during his decade at
Amgen
— to fill the role of senior director, translational sciences, neuroimmunology in 2019 and later became executive director, CNS discovery before his exit in January.
→ At the same time as completing its acquisition of
Bayon
Therapeutics
,
EyeGate Pharmaceuticals
has tapped
Bayon’s co-founder and director
Eric Daniels
as chief development officer. Daniels also comes aboard from
OccuRx
, where he was CEO. Prior to those roles, Daniels was co-founder and director of
Okogen
and served at
Cytori Therapeutics
among others.
→ Swiss-based
Celonic
has named
Alexandre Pasini
as COO, succeeding
Vikalp Mohan
— who will now be serving as CBO. Pasini joins the company after a stint as COO at
SaniSure
. Prior to that, Pasini spent over a decade at
Lonza
in roles ranging from site director to head of global bioscience operations.
→ Following the appointment of chief manufacturing officer
Tushar Misra
in August, Cambridge, MA antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) player
Mersana Therapeutics
has installed
Mohan Bala
as SVP, strategic product planning & program leadership. Fellow
Tesaro
alum
Brian DeSchuytner
, who once had strategic product planning duties, earns a promotion to SVP and CFO. Bala gets a fresh start here after less than a year as COO at
Constellation Pharmaceuticals
, and he also brings Big Pharma credentials from
J&J
(
Centocor
), GSK and Sanofi.
→
Doug Girgenti
has taken over
as VP of drug development at Melinta Therapeutics. Prior to joining Melinta, Girgenti led clinical development programs as senior medical director at Magenta Therapeutics. Girgenti has also supervised global development programs at
Wyeth
/Pfizer and
Boehringer Ingelheim
.
→
Exo Therapeutics
has brought on
Dorothy Lou Bailey
as SVP, corporate development and strategy. Most notably, Bailey has served as head of corporate development at
Blackthorn Therapeutics
. With its roots in
David Liu
’s Harvard lab, Exo — the exosite-focused biotech led by CEO
Michael Bruce
— made the news earlier this month with its $78 million
Series B round
.
→ Penny stock kidney disease player
Unicycive Therapeutics
, which
priced
its IPO at $25 million after originally filing for a $36 million offering,
has lined up
pharma vet
Douglas Jermasek
as EVP, corporate strategy. Jermasek writes a new chapter at Unicycive after his time at
Akebia
(then
Keryx
after the
merger
) as SVP, marketing and strategy, and to close out 12 years at Genzyme from 2014, he was Sanofi’s SVP and general manager, head of renal global business unit.
→
Pascal Bamford
is venturing off
to
Akoya Biosciences
, which started a spatial biology partnership in June with
AstraZeneca
, as SVP, R&D and laboratory operations. Like Akoya’s COO,
Frederic Pla
, Bamford is a
Genomic Health
alum, serving as SVP of products and services R&D before and after
Exact Sciences
ponied up $2.8 billion
to buy
the company in the summer of 2019.
→ After nabbing regulatory affairs and CMC execs in March, San Diego oncology player
Aptose
has promoted
Janet Clennett
to VP, finance and picked up
Roger Davies
as VP, operations. Clennett originally moved on to Aptose as director of finance after her time in the same capacity and as acting CFO at
ProMIS Neurosciences
. With experience under his belt at CROs (
Icon
) and pharma giants (Novartis), Davies comes off a three-year stay with
Intercept
in clinical operations.
→
Lumicks
, a Dutch provider of single molecule and cell avidity analysis,
has pulled in
Joshua Young
as VP of investor relations, communications and strategy. Once the head of investor relations at Merck KGaA, Young comes to Lumicks after a short tenure as the VP of investor relations at
Everbridge
.
→ What’s next for
Tal Zaks
after leaving
Moderna
and
joining the board
at
Teva
? He’ll be rolling in the Deep as he
gets a spot
on the strategic advisory board at
Deep Genomics
,
Brendan Frey
’s Toronto-based AI and machine learning shop that has a boatload of new cash in the form of a $180 million
Series C
from July to push its batch of RNA therapies to the clinic. Since Zaks’
departure
as CMO, Moderna has taken more heat for the lack of availability of its Covid-19 vaccine in lower- and middle-income countries, which the biotech tried to ameliorate this week by
ramping up
production for the African Union.
→
Running alongside
its $100 million Series C from earlier in the week, New York anti-aging biotech
Cambrian Biopharma
has welcomed one of its investors, ex-Allergan CEO
Brent Saunders
, to the board of directors. Saunders, who
chairs
the board at little-known
OcuTerra
, “hit it off” with CEO
James Peyer
, as our Jason Mast
notes
.
Paul Farr
, a partner at
Anthos Capital
— which co-led the round with
SALT Fund
— also takes a seat on Cambrian’s board.
→
Scott Myers
is having himself a week. Not only
has he been named
chairman at Harpoon, he
has replaced
Andrew Hack
as chairman of the board at Dynavax — since May 2020, Hack had chaired the vaccine biotech on an interim basis. Myers, the CEO of
AMAG Pharmaceuticals
for a hot second until it was
acquired
by
Covis
last fall, is on the boards of
Selecta Biosciences
and
Trillium Therapeutics
, which Pfizer
bought out
for $2.3 billion in August.
→
Neil Kumar
’s crew at
BridgeBio
, which is partnering with Bristol Myers to explore a drug combo involving
Opdivo
and SHP2 inhibitor
BBP-398
,
has named
Hannah Valantine
to the board of directors. Valantine, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, was the first chief officer for scientific workforce diversity at the NIH from 2014-20.
→ Bristol Myers’ global R&D chief
Rupert Vessey
has been elected
to the board of directors at
Nereid Therapeutics
, part of a biomolecular condensate field that also includes
Dewpoint
and
Faze Medicines
. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital EVP and COO
Laura Forese
is joining Vessey on Nereid’s board.
→ Boston-based
BYOMass
has recruited
Declan Doogan
and
Stephen Hoffman
to its board of directors. Doogan is the CMO and co-founder of
Juvenescence
, while Hoffman most recently served as CRO of Aerpio Pharmaceuticals. Besides his stint at Juvenescence, Doogan is the chairman and co-founder of
Biohaven Pharmaceuticals
and previously worked with Pfizer and
Amarin
. Meanwhile, this isn’t Hoffman’s first board appointment. He also sits on the boards of
AcelRx
Pharmaceuticals
,
Dicerna
Pharmaceuticals
,
Danforth
Advisors
, and
Apic
Bio
.
→
Verastem Oncology
has made room
for
Michelle Robertson
on the board of directors. Robertson, the CFO for
Jim Mullen
at
Editas Medicine
, has also been CFO for
Momenta
before
it was sold
to J&J in 2020.
→ Speaking of Editas,
Bernadette Connaughton
has joined
the board of directors — one that also includes
C4
CEO
Andrew Hirsch
and the newest
board member
at
Werewolf Therapeutics
,
Legend
SVP
Meeta Chatterjee
. Connaughton, a longtime Bristol Myers exec who left in 2017 as president, intercontinental, has board seats at
Syneos Health
,
Zealand Pharma
and
Halozyme
.
→
Hanmi Science
CEO
Jong-yoon Lim
has been tapped
as a registered director of
Oxford
Vacmedix
. Prior to his current role at Hanmi Science, Lim was CEO of
Hanmi Pharmaceuticals
and head of
Beijing Hanmi Pharm
.
→
HCW Biologics
has brought on
Lisa Giles
and
Gary Winer
to its board of directors. Giles is the managing director and CEO of
Giles &
Associates Consultancy
and currently sits on the board of
Milestone Pharmaceuticals
. Earlier in her career, Giles served at
Abbott Laboratories
. Meanwhile, Winer previously served as president and CEO of
Orgentec Diagnostika
. Earlier in his career, Winer held stints at Abbott and was VP of global commercial strategies at
AbbVie
and president and CEO of AbbVie Japan.
→
Jonathan Arnold
,
Catalent’s
president, oral and special delivery,
has joined
the board of directors of
ANGUS Chemical
Company
. Prior to his current position at Catalent, Arnold served as VP and general manager of the company’s drug delivery solutions business unit. Prior to Catalent, Arnold was with
Pantheon
.
→
Synendos Therapeutics
has appointed
the following members to its scientific advisory board:
Karl-Heinz Altmann
,
Anahita Bassir Nia
,
Graeme Bilbe
,
Jürg Gertsch
, and
Kirsten Müller-Vahl
. In November of last year, the Swiss-based startup
raised
$21.85 million in Series A financing to develop therapies for neuropsychiatric disorders.