→ As
bluebird bio
’s regulatory concerns swell yet again by pressing the pause button for
LentiGlobin
a month ago,
Joanne Smith-Farrell
won’t be around to see how the saga plays out with the FDA. Smith-Farrell
has taken the helm
at
Longwood
-backed B cell biotech
Be Biopharma
, which launched last October with a $52 million Series A
round
. She was previously bluebird’s COO and business unit head, oncology, and she first came to
Nick Leschly
’s team as CBO in 2017 after her Big Pharma experience in business development with
Merck
and
Pfizer
. Smith-Farrell
tells
our Kyle Blankenship that her decision to become CEO at Be Bio wasn’t related to the decision to
split
bluebird into two companies in January.
Elsewhere,
Rick Morgan
has decided not to be
part
of the
Jim Mullen
Experience at
Editas Medicine
after joining Be Bio as CSO. Morgan, a bluebird vet in his own right, had been the SVP of immunogenetics at Editas since 2018.
→ Smith-Farrell isn’t the only bluebird staffer that’s getting out of Dodge. CMO
David Davidson
announced
his intent to leave bluebird after nine years on the job, effective April 16. The
Genzyme
vet will stay on as a consultant until his successor is found. While the sun parted from the clouds for bluebird this week with positive
data
for its Lorenzo’s Oil disease program, the LentiGlobin
drama
and the
suspension
of marketing for
Zynteglo
still represent a stormy pattern at the biotech.
→
Roger Perlmutter
sure initiated a changing of the guard at Merck. After the R&D chief
announced
he would hang it up, CEO
Ken Frazier
followed suit by
planning
a June 30 departure.
Mike Nally
, chief marketing officer for the Human Health division, was on an internal short list of candidates to replace Frazier. But with
Robert Davis
waiting in the wings as CEO, Nally is
on his way out
too after holding numerous gigs at the pharma giant since 2003 before becoming the chief marketing exec two years ago.
Frank Clyburn
, who joined Merck in 2008 and was chief commercial officer, Human Health,
has been given
the title of president, Human Health.
One other
note
on Perlmutter: Shanghai-based CBC Group
just named him
as a science partner and a member of the scientific advisory board.
→ Juxtaposed with the positive Phase III data that were released in the SHORELINE study for depression drug
zuranolone
,
Sage
COO
Mike Cloonan
wants to set out on his own as a CEO (destination unknown) and
bids adieu
on May 3. The MOUNTAIN study for
zuranolone
failed
in late 2019, gutting the stock. And Cloonan, an ex-
Biogen
commercial exec who began as Sage’s CBO in 2017, transitioned to COO after a
restructuring
that resulted in more than half the workforce facing the chopping block in April 2020. Three months ago,
Barry Greene
stepped in
to helm Sage, while ex-CEO
Jeff Jonas
took over as chief information officer.
→
Frank Zhang
was
released
on bail last month, but he’s a man without a company now that
Ying Huang
has taken over as
Legend
’s CEO, and the Chinese biotech continues life after Zhang with
Lori Macomber
getting promoted
to VP, finance. Since 2019, Macomber had been Legend’s VP of supply chain finance and controller, and she also brings seven years of financial experience from
Eli Lilly
. The move comes two months after Legend made
Lida Pacaud
VP of clinical development after wrapping up her tenure at
Novartis Oncology
as global program clinical head, executive medical director of the cell & gene therapy unit.
→ Co-founded by
David Liu
and fresh off the
acquisition
of Georgia Tech spinout
Guide Therapeutics
, base editing biotech
Beam Therapeutics
has named
Amy Simon
CMO. Simon had been with
Alnylam
since 2010, starting as a clinical researcher and then moving up to VP of clinical development, a title she had held for the past year. She was the lead clinician for
givosiran
, marketed as
Givlaari
after the FDA
approved
the drug in 2019 for acute hepatic porphyria.
→ Former
Five Prime Therapeutics
president and CEO
Aron Knickerbocker
has taken
the helm of
Aulos Bioscience
as CEO. Prior to his new role, Knickerbocker was co-founder, founding CEO and chairman of
RayzeBio
. Prior to RayzeBio and Five Prime, Knickerbocker spent over eight years at
Genentech
.
→
Chris Garabedian
’s Perceptive Xontogeny Fund
led the way
on the Series A last summer, and now
Steve Altschuler
-chaired eye disease biotech
AsclepiX
out of Baltimore
has handed
the president and CEO reins to
Robert Dempsey
.
Bellicum
founder
Kevin Slawin
had been interim CEO before the appointment. Dempsey, who had helmed ophthalmic company
TearClear
, was global head of ophthalmology at
Shire
and was at the forefront of
Takeda
’s 2019 sale of
Xiidra
to
Novartis
in an up to $5.3 billion deal.
→ Shire alum
Mark Rus
has become
CEO of Boston-based
Delix Therapeutics
, which is aimed at CNS disorders and uses technology from
David Olson
’s lab at UC-Davis to develop “psychoplastogens,” or molecules that can promote neuroplasticity. Rus just served as an entrepreneur-in-residence and advisor for
Atlas Venture
and logged 13 years at Shire until the Takeda buyout, the last four of those years as group VP of neuroscience.
→
Nordic Nanovector
has reeled in
Peter Braun
as CEO. Braun joins the company with three decades of experience from
Roche
, where he served as SVP, head of access strategy, health policy & communications. In addition to Roche, Braun served at
Biofourmis
as CCO.
→ There’s a new sheriff in town at Swedish immuno-oncology outfit
Alligator Bioscience
, with
Søren Bregenholt
taking command
as CEO after helming UK-based
Macrophage Pharma
since 2019. Prior to his first CEO job, Bregenholt held corporate VP posts for eight years each at
Novo Nordisk
and
Symphogen
. Bregenholt succeeds
Per Norlén
starting June 1, and in the meantime, COO
Malin Carlsson
will fill the interim CEO slot.
→ Belgium-based
Augustine Therapeutics
has selected
Sylvain Celanire
as its CEO. Celanire jumpstarted his career at
UCB New Medicine
before hopping aboard
Addex Therapeutics
. In addition, Celanire is the co-founder and CEO of
Pragma Therapeutics
.
→
Yi Larson
has joined
Perceptive
startup
LianBio
, a “best-in-class sourcing and development engine” in China that
launched
last August, as CFO. A former managing director of healthcare investment banking at
Goldman Sachs
, Larson just completed her first turn as a CFO with
Turning Point Therapeutics
. A few months after contributing to LianBio’s debut round, Pfizer
forked over
an additional $70 million in a collaboration built around in-licensing and co-developing new therapies.
→ While the country fills out NCAA Tournament brackets,
Eledon Pharmaceuticals
is filling out
its leadership team with
Jeff Bornstein
as CMO and
Paul Little
as CFO. Bornstein, a Biogen and
Gilead
alum, comes to Eledon from Takeda, where he was the Japanese pharma’s VP and head of clinical sciences, gastroenterology. Little is a longtime
Allergan
exec in finance and commercial operations who had previously been CFO and treasurer of
Sientra
. Eledon, a biotech out of Irvine, CA, targets the CD40L pathway to develop drugs for those with ALS, autoimmune diseases and organ or cell transplant recipients.
→ Pittsburgh-based biotech
Peptilogics
, which focuses on peptide drug design and development — and scored a $35.4 million Series B that was
boosted
by
Peter Thiel
—
has tapped
David Huang
as SVP and CMO. Huang is a longtime attending physician with the Department of Veterans Affairs and has been a CMO before with
ContraFect
,
Motif Bio
, and
X-Biotix Pharmaceuticals
.
Peptilogics has made a couple other appointments with
Nick Nystrom
as SVP, computing and data, and
Nicholas Pachuda
as SVP, portfolio strategy and development. Nystrom spent 28 years with the
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
, departing as chief scientist, while Pachuda hails from
J&J
’s orthopedic franchise,
DePuy Synthes
, serving as worldwide VP of external innovation and enabling technologies.
→
Christopher Recknor
is getting promoted
to COO at
CytoDyn
, a week after CEO
Nader Pourhassan
cranked up the spin machine
to explain
how
leronlimab
missing the mark on its primary endpoint was a source of optimism. Recknor, who joined CytoDyn as VP of clinical development in August 2020, has also been a principal investigator for such Big Pharmas as
AstraZeneca
, Eli Lilly and
Amgen
in more than 100 clinical trials.
→ Chalking up $47 million in
new funding
to target metabolic diseases using incretin receptor agonists, Berkeley, CA-based
Carmot Therapeutics
has welcomed
Manu Chakravarthy
as CMO and EVP of R&D. Chakravarthy, whose involvement in Big Pharma R&D began at Merck, had previously been CMO of
Axcella Health
. Before Axcella, he was Eli Lilly’s VP and global head of external R&D and innovation strategy in diabetes and cardiovascular research.
→
Iovance
makes
their second C-suite hire in three months, with
Igor Bilinsky
jumping on board as COO (back in December, Jean Marc Bellemin
was appointed
CFO at the California cell therapy biotech). Bilinsky had most recently been CBO at
Oncternal Therapeutics
, and he’s been a CEO before at
Androclus Therapeutics
, which closed up shop in 2007. Bilinsky’s previous COO experience was with
AmpliPhi Biosciences
before his short stay at Oncternal.
→ T cell engager biotech
Janux
— joining forces on a $1 billion
pact
with Merck in one of Roger Perlmutter’s parting deals —
has brought on
Andy Meyer
as CBO. Meyer was
Evercore
’s managing director in life sciences investment banking and spent nearly six years there after his time at
Bank of America
. A couple weeks ago, Janux
gathered up
$56 million in a Series A raise that was spurred by the Merck deal.
→
Edward Smith
has signed on
to
Versant
–
backed
bispecific gamma-delta T cell engager (or bsTCEs) biotech
Lava Therapeutics
to become its CFO. Before heading to the Dutch outfit, which just
made
Kapil Dhingra
chairman of the board last month, Smith had spent eight years as CFO of
Marinus Pharmaceuticals
, which
read out
positive data last fall with its lone drug that focuses on CDKL5 deficiency disorder.
→
Robert Willette
has tacked
on the role of CSO at
APIE Therapeutics
. Willette joins the company from
Complexa Therapeutics
and
ImmuniMet Therapeutics
, where he served as interim CSO. Prior to that, Willette had a 30-year long stint at
GSK
, where he most recently served as VP and head of the company’s heart failure and renal discovery performance unit.
→
Lisa Decker
has left
Atreca
to become
CBO at Silicon Valley-based
IGM Biosciences
, which — you guessed it — focuses on IgM antibodies and
debuted
on Nasdaq in 2019 with a $175 million IPO. Before her time as CBO at Atreca, she held various titles in 11 years at
Nektar
, with her final role being VP, business development.
→ Shanghai-based
Antengene
made a few key hires last summer,
including
CMO
Donald Lung
and medical affairs VP
Dirk Hoenemann
. Now the hematology and oncology player
has welcomed
Minyoung Kim
as general manager of Antengene South Korea. She had previously been general manager of
Ipsen Korea
since 2015 and also brings marketing experience from
Eli Lilly Korea
.
→ Spinning its wheels in Phase III of its Covid-19
vaccine candidate
while promising to respond to the FDA’s clinical hold,
Inovio
has recruited
Michael Cordera
as EVP and general counsel. Cordera, who had soared to EVP and general counsel at
Eagle Pharmaceuticals
, joined the biotech as its deputy general counsel five years ago. In addition to the regulatory issues that beset Inovio,
Joseph Kim
’s bunch also
squabbled
with its contract manufacturer, filing suit against
VGXI
to get unshackled from the relationship.
→
Boundless Bio
has named
Shailaja Kasibhatla
as VP, discovery and translational development. Prior to her new role, Kasibhatla was senior director of translational development at
Bristol Myers Squibb
. Before that, she had an eight-year stint at Novartis and served at Merck Research Labs.
→ Digital health-focused
Welldoc
has named
Marina Dorotheo
its chief marketing officer. Dorotheo jumps aboard after a 22-year stint at
Otsuka
, most recently serving as head of commercial strategy and marketing within Otsuka’s Digital Medicine hub.
→
Rick Klausner
-chaired
Lyell Immunopharma
— focused on using T cells to cure solid tumors —
has enlisted
Richard Sherry
as SVP, TIL specialist and clinical lead. Most recently, Sherry served as research physician and attending surgeon in the surgery branch at the
NCI Center for Cancer Research
and the
NCI Clinical Center
. In addition, he has held roles at the
NIH
, the NIH Surgical Administrative Committee, the Saftey Monitoring Committee for the National Institute of Neurologic Disorders and Stroke and as a melanoma expert for the FDA’s Drug Advisory Committee.
→ Venture capital fund
Section 23
has added
two new hires to its team with the appointments of
Andy Harrison
as managing partner and
Sue Hager
as chief investor relations and communications officer. Harrison hops aboard with leadership experience from
Alphabet
,
Verily Life Sciences
and
X
(formerly
GoogleX
). Meanwhile, Hager most recently served at
EQRx
and
Foundation Medicine
.
→
Komodo Health
has recruited
Laurent Bride
as chief technology officer (CTO). Bride joins the group from software company
Talend
, where he also served as CTO.
→ San Diego-based oncology biotech
Aptose
has a pair
of new execs with
George Melko
(VP, regulatory affairs) and
Robert Killion
(VP, CMC). A regulatory alum at AstraZeneca and
Incyte
, Melko has recently served as VP of regulatory affairs at
Tmunity
and
Tessa Therapeutics
. Killion lands this promotion to a newly-created gig after coming onto the scene at Aptose last year. He’s held CMC positions at Roche/Genentech — where he spent nearly two decades combined— and Gilead.
→ Ex-
Audentes
chairman and CEO
Matthew Patterson
has been named
executive chairman of the board at
Remix Therapeutics
, the Cambridge, MA RNA processing biotech that
hauled in
$81 million for its December 2020 launch. Patterson has since moved into a strategic advisory role with Audentes.
→
Laura Shawver
has a new board member at Seattle-based
Silverback
— a late
entrant
in 2020’s IPO bonanza — with the
addition
of
Repare Therapeutics
CMO
Maria Koehler
. The ex-CMO of
Bicycle Therapeutics
was also an exec with Pfizer Oncology from 2009-17.
→
GSK
vet and
Travere Therapeutics
CEO
Eric Dube
has joined
the board of directors at mitochondrial disease-focused
Reneo Pharmaceuticals
. In two years at the biotech, Dube has led the post-
Martin Shkreli
rebranding of
Retrophin
, which
became
Travere back in November.
→ Former
Merck
CMO
Michael Rosenblatt
is joining
the board of directors at
PYC Therapeutics
, adding another board seat to his résumé. Rosenblatt
left his role
at Merck in 2016 to join
Flagship Pioneering
, where he now serves as a senior partner. Rosenblatt currently sits on the boards of
Rubius
Therapeutics
,
Cygnal
Therapeutics
and
Ohana
Biosciences
.
→
Sanofi
delivered two sickle-cell programs from the
Bioverativ
deal to
Global Blood Therapeutics
this week
, and
Ted Love
’s crew
has reserved
a place for
Alexis Thompson
on the board of directors. A past president of the
American Society of Hematology
, Thompson is head of the hematology section and director of the Comprehensive Thalassemia Program at the
Lurie Children’s Hospital
in Chicago.
→
Muna Bhanji
, who devoted more than 30 years to Merck,
has another
board appointment to her credit with
Ardelyx
as
Gordon Ringold
steps aside from the board. Bhanji, who capped her career at the pharma giant as SVP, global market access and policy,
also joined
the board at
Cytokinetics
a month ago.
→ Several months after
adding
Replimune
’s
Pamela Esposito
and
Blueprint Medicines
CEO
Jeff Albers
to the board of directors,
Kymera Therapeutics
has made room
for
Elena Ridloff
on the board as well. Ridloff joined
Acadia
as VP, investor relations in 2018 and is currently CFO.
→
Trevena
is bringing
Marvin Johnson
into the fold on the board of directors, as founding CEO
Maxine Gowen
and
Julie McHugh
both retire from the board. Johnson retired from Merck in 2018 as chief learning officer in the pharma giant’s global learning and development department.
→
José-Carlos Gutiérrez Ramos
has locked in
a seat on the board of directors at Genentech immuno-oncology partner Bicycle Therapeutics. The ex-CEO of
Synlogic
and
Repertoire Immune Medicines
is now CSO at
Danaher
.
→ Waiting out a
partial clinical hold
from the FDA on its head and neck squamous cell carcinoma study,
ALX Oncology
has elected
Sophia Randolph
to the board of directors. The Pfizer and Merck oncology alum has been ALX’s CMO for nearly five years.
→ Woburn, MA-based
ReForm Biologics
has chosen
Barbara Finck
to be a part of its board of directors. Currently, Finck serves as the acting CMO at
Coherus BioSciences
. Finck has also held roles at
Immunex
and
Eos Biotechnology
among others.