Nel­son Am­bro­gio

→ Bay­er has hand­ed out two pro­mo­tions in its US op­er­a­tions, with Nel­son Am­bro­gio and John Berrios both get­ting the bump. Am­bro­gio be­comes SVP, gen­er­al man­ag­er of on­col­o­gy, while Berrios take Am­bro­gio’s place as SVP, gen­er­al man­ag­er of women’s health­care. Am­bro­gio is a long­time Bay­er vet who’s held such ti­tles in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as gen­er­al man­ag­er in Aus­tralia and New Zealand and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor in Por­tu­gal. Berrios, who joined Bay­er in 2016 af­ter 15 years at As­traZeneca, takes on his new re­spon­si­bil­i­ties af­ter a year as VP, com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions.

A 30-year makeover is now in the works for Bay­er’s Berke­ley cam­pus that would add 918,000 square feet of build­ing space.

→ Late last month, Hu­mani­gen inched an­oth­er step clos­er to its hopes of fil­ing an emer­gency use au­tho­riza­tion, trot­ting out pos­i­tive Phase III lenzilum­ab da­ta for Covid-19 pa­tients. This week Cameron Dur­rant’s crew has poached Adri­an Kil­coyne from As­traZeneca to be CMO. Kil­coyne was the wob­bling phar­ma gi­ant’s VP of on­col­o­gy glob­al med­ical af­fairs, head of ev­i­dence gen­er­a­tion and ex­ter­nal al­liances, and he led the launch of Calquence, which along with Farx­i­ga saw no sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fit when re­pur­posed for Covid-19. Pri­or to As­traZeneca, Kil­coyne was Cel­gene’s ex­ec­u­tive med­ical di­rec­tor, glob­al lym­phoma pro­gram lead, clin­i­cal R&D.

Robert Langer

→ A shin­ing bea­con has ar­rived at Je­re­my Levin‘s Ovid in the form of Robert Langer. Langer comes on af­ter the com­pa­ny’s lead drug was a bust in a late-stage test. Langer, a fa­bled MIT in­ves­ti­ga­tor and se­r­i­al en­tre­pre­neur, has signed on as chair to the sci­en­tif­ic board — of­fer­ing guid­ance a day af­ter Levin of­fi­cial­ly tossed both pro­grams for OV101. In his ca­reer, Langer has helped start more than 30 biotechs, of­ten steered by one of his post­docs. In ad­di­tion, he was an ear­ly backer of Mod­er­na, serv­ing as an aca­d­e­m­ic co-founder of the com­pa­ny. Langer had an ear­ly stake in Mod­er­na, which led him to bil­lion­aire sta­tus.

Ja­mi Ru­bin

→ While she was with Gold­man Sachs, Ja­mi Ru­bin liked to put biotech ex­ecs un­der the mi­cro­scope with tough lines of ques­tion­ing. Ru­bin’s lat­est chal­lenge takes her to EQRx, where as CFO she’ll be in the dri­ver’s seat to fur­ther the com­pa­ny’s vi­sion of rewrit­ing the rule book for drug pric­ing. Af­ter a decade at Gold­man Sachs, Ru­bin then be­came a part­ner at PJT Part­ners, lend­ing her ex­per­tise to biotechs and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies. Ru­bin isn’t the on­ly new face at EQRx, with Kent Rogers get­ting the nod as chief cus­tomer of­fi­cer fol­low­ing his time at Unit­ed­Health Group’s Op­tum­Rx as SVP of in­dus­try re­la­tions.

→ Genen­tech’s very own Sushil Pa­tel is hit­ting the ex­it af­ter a 20-year stint and hop­ping aboard tiny on­colyt­ic virus biotech Replimune as their CCO. Known as the for­mer Tecen­triq ‘CEO’ at Genen­tech, Pa­tel served as glob­al on­col­o­gy fran­chise head for lung and skin can­cer and rare/ag­nos­tic tu­mor types.

Mar­tin Mur­phy

→ Chris­t­ian Itin has stepped down as chair­man of the board at Au­to­lus and has been re­placed by Syn­cona CEO Mar­tin Mur­phy. Itin will re­main CEO at Au­to­lus, the Lon­don-based T cell ther­a­py biotech that jet­ti­soned 20% of its staffers at the start of the year. Itin had chaired Au­to­lus, and Mur­phy had been a non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, since the start of the com­pa­ny in 2014.

→ Just af­ter ex-Mof­fitt Can­cer Cen­ter CEO Alan List took his place at Pre­ci­sion Bio­Sciences, Christo­pher Heery has land­ed at Ar­cel­lx as CMO. Heery held the post at Pre­ci­sion for near­ly two years and was al­so CMO at Bavar­i­an Nordic. Be­fore step­ping in­to biotech, he was the Na­tion­al Can­cer In­sti­tute’s head of the clin­i­cal tri­als group of the Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Tu­mor Im­munol­o­gy and Bi­ol­o­gy. Else­where at Ar­cel­lx, which raised $115 mil­lion in a Se­ries C last week to de­vel­op CAR-T ther­a­pies, Neer­aj Teo­tia wrapped up his time as Nevro’s VP of fi­nance and has been cho­sen as chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer. Pri­or to Nevro, Teo­tia worked in R&D and new busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at J&J.

Luisa Salter-Cid

→ Luisa Salter-Cid is re­sign­ing as CSO of San Diego-based Gos­samer Bio, and Lau­ra Carter has been pro­mot­ed from with­in to re­place her, start­ing April 30. Carter, the SVP, re­search & trans­la­tion­al bi­ol­o­gy at Gos­samer since 2019, was pre­vi­ous­ly the SVP, bi­ol­o­gy at Lyc­era. Salter-Cid de­vot­ed 13 years to Bris­tol My­ers Squibb be­fore mak­ing the leap in 2018 to Gos­samer, led once again by Fa­heem Has­nain af­ter its lead drug flopped — prompt­ing his old Re­cep­tos col­league Sheila Gu­jrathi to step down in No­vem­ber.

→ Last month, Rand Suther­land was named pres­i­dent of Lex­ing­ton, MA-based mR­NA play­er Trans­late Bio, and more lead­er­ship moves have been made once again with Bren­dan Smith on board as CFO along with two oth­er ap­point­ments. Be­fore his most re­cent gig as a part­ner at Boston Con­sult­ing Group, Smith was Pfiz­er’s VP, head of busi­ness op­er­a­tions for world­wide R&D. Trans­late Bio al­so liked what they saw in Greg Troiano enough to pro­mote him to chief man­u­fac­tur­ing of­fi­cer. An­oth­er Pfiz­er vet (VP, nanomed­i­cine de­vel­op­ment and en­gi­neer­ing), Troiano came on the scene as Trans­late Bio’s SVP of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions al­most a year ago. Fi­nal­ly, 12-year Ver­tex alum Jim Sul­li­van be­came SVP, pul­monary dis­cov­ery in Jan­u­ary af­ter be­ing ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, head of trans­la­tion­al bi­ol­o­gy at Sana.

Abra­ham Ceesay

→ With No­vaQue­st and pre­vi­ous backer Bain plunk­ing down $125 mil­lion in non-di­lu­tive fund­ing to pro­pel its Phase III tava­padon pro­gram for Parkin­son’s, Tony Coles-led Cerev­el has ap­point­ed Abra­ham Ceesay pres­i­dent of the com­pa­ny. The Gen­zyme vet makes the tran­si­tion to Cerev­el af­ter lead­ing Tibu­rio Ther­a­peu­tics as the Cy­dan spin­out’s first CEO. Ceesay was al­so COO of scPhar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and VP of mar­ket­ing at Iron­wood.

→ Glob­al qual­i­ty, com­pli­ance and reg­u­la­to­ry con­sult­ing group Val­i­dant has ac­quired Green­leaf Health. As part of the ac­qui­si­tion, Val­i­dant has placed Patrick Ro­nan, the founder and for­mer CEO of Green­leaf, at the helm of Val­i­dant as CEO. Be­fore his stint at Green­leaf, Ro­nan was VP of reg­u­la­to­ry pol­i­cy & ex­ter­nal af­fairs at No­var­tis. In ad­di­tion, he has served as chief of staff and as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er of leg­is­la­tion on Capi­tol Hill.

Matthew Gantz

→ Jeff Aronin’s cell and gene ther­a­py crew at Penn­syl­va­nia-based Cas­tle Creek Bio­sciences has tapped Matthew Gantz as pres­i­dent and CEO, while his pre­de­ces­sor, John Maslows­ki, won’t stray too far at all as he slides in­to the COO post. Gantz had helmed Stock­holm-based Pri­ma­ry hy­per­ox­aluria biotech Ox­Thera since 2017, when he suc­ceed­ed Elis­a­beth Lind­ner in the top spot. Since 2012, Gantz has served on the board of di­rec­tors at an­oth­er Stock­holm com­pa­ny, So­bi, which forked over $250 mil­lion up­front for com­mer­cial­iza­tion of Apel­lis’ rare dis­ease drug pegc­eta­coplan out­side the US.

→ While we’re on the sub­ject of Penn­syl­va­nia biotechs, Cor­leen Roche has signed on to Im­munome, which net­ted a De­part­ment of De­fense con­tract to de­vel­op biosyn­thet­ic con­va­les­cent plas­ma, as CFO. Al­though she shares a name with a phar­ma gi­ant, Roche in­stead was the US CFO at Bio­gen the last two years and held fi­nan­cial lead­er­ship ti­tles at Sanofi, Wyeth (now Pfiz­er) and San­doz. Her ar­rival fol­lows that of chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer Den­nis Giesing at Im­munome, which is us­ing its hu­man mem­o­ry B cell plat­form for ther­a­pies in the on­col­o­gy and in­fec­tious dis­ease are­nas in ad­di­tion to Covid-19.

David Chung

→ An­oth­er domi­no has fall­en at In­ter­cept now that David Chung has joined Or­biMed-backed Bio­haven spin­out BioShin out of Shang­hai, which scored a $60 mil­lion round back in Sep­tem­ber. The stam­pede out the door at In­ter­cept shows few signs of abat­ing, with Chung leav­ing to be BioShin’s chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer and head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment af­ter three years as VP, head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at the NASH biotech that can’t seem to get off the strug­gle bus. The Bris­tol My­ers vet was se­nior di­rec­tor, strat­e­gy & cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment at Jazz Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals be­fore mov­ing to In­ter­cept.

→ We now head for the moun­tains of Boul­der, CO, where NASH and Wil­son’s dis­ease biotech Enve­da Bio­sciences has plucked Sotirios Karathana­sis from Neo­Prog­en to be CSO. Karathana­sis, the ex-CSO of en­docrine and car­dio­vas­cu­lar re­search at Lil­ly Re­search Lab­o­ra­to­ries, brings fur­ther Big Phar­ma ex­pe­ri­ence from As­traZeneca (with such po­si­tions as VP and head of bio­sciences) and Pfiz­er (as di­rec­tor of car­dio­vas­cu­lar phar­ma­col­o­gy at Pfiz­er Glob­al Re­search & De­vel­op­ment). Karathana­sis was VP of R&D at Neo­Prog­en, which is de­vel­op­ing ex­o­some-based ther­a­pies and has of­fices across the street from Ori­ole Park at Cam­den Yards in Bal­ti­more.

Isaac Klein

→ Ameet Nath­wani’s bio­mol­e­c­u­lar con­den­sate shop Dew­point Ther­a­peu­tics, which has sealed deals with Mer­ck, Bay­er and Pfiz­er, has re­cruit­ed Isaac Klein as CSO. Klein was at MIT’s White­head In­sti­tute as a re­searcher in Rick Young’s lab — plac­ing his em­pha­sis on “un­der­stand­ing the role of con­den­sates in can­cer, tran­scrip­tion, and drug ac­tiv­i­ty” — and he’s a med­ical on­col­o­gist at the Dana-Far­ber Can­cer In­sti­tute.

→ New York can­cer and rare dis­ease biotech Pro­tara Ther­a­peu­tics has tapped Martín Se­bas­t­ian Oli­vo as CMO. Oli­vo comes to Pro­tara from Gilead, where he was VP, breast can­cer clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment lead, slid­ing over from Im­munomedics af­ter the $21 bil­lion buy­out. Oli­vo was in the on­col­o­gy busi­ness group at Ei­sai for six years and then spent the next year at the Dai­ichi Sankyo Can­cer En­ter­prise as glob­al clin­i­cal lead.

David Nichols

→ David Nichols has signed on to be chief tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer at stem cell trans­plan­ta­tion play­er and Beam’s ADC part­ner, Ma­gen­ta Ther­a­peu­tics. Nichols makes the tran­si­tion to Ma­gen­ta af­ter five years at Kiniksa, the last two as SVP of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions, and he’s been head of CMC bi­o­log­ics at Tesaro. Ma­gen­ta is al­so putting its stem cell plat­form and ADC de­vel­op­ment pow­ers to the test as a means to block HIV, part of a $14.6 mil­lion grant from the NIH with part­ners such as USC and Fred Hutch.

Celia Lin

→ For­mer­ly Tru­code Gene Re­pair, the re­vamped Ve­ra Ther­a­peu­tics — de­vel­op­er of the IgA nephropa­thy drug at­aci­cept that raked in an $80 mil­lion Se­ries C round in Jan­u­ary — has made three new ap­point­ments: Celia Lin (CMO), Tad Thomas (head of prod­uct de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing) and Joseph Young (SVP of fi­nance). Lin was a med­ical di­rec­tor in clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and med­ical af­fairs at Am­gen, and then for the last six years she’s served as a se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor at Genen­tech. Thomas, who has filled process de­vel­op­ment and CMC po­si­tions at Alex­ion, Ipsen and Bay­er, among oth­ers, was re­cent­ly as­so­ciate VP, tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions at Codex­is. And Young leaves Plexxikon af­ter 14 years, start­ing out as con­troller and climb­ing the lad­der to SVP, fi­nance.

→ Alan Smith has got­ten the call to be chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer of South San Fran­cis­co-based Am­bys Med­i­cines, the cell and gene ther­a­py start­up backed by Third Rock and Take­da. Smith leaves Man­ny Si­mons’ squad at Ak­ou­os af­ter less than a year as CTO, and be­fore that he was Bel­licum’s EVP of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions.

Patrick Big­ot

→ The lead­er­ship team is fur­ther tak­ing shape — sor­ry, Peer Re­view couldn’t re­sist — at Seat­tle gene ther­a­py out­fit Shape Ther­a­peu­tics, which has brought on Patrick Big­ot as CBO af­ter Gary Fortin took over as COO a few months ago. Big­ot just had a short stay as Ver­i­ly’s glob­al head, strate­gic al­liances, but pri­or to that he was with Genen­tech from 2006-19, a run that cul­mi­nat­ed in his du­ties as VP of al­liance man­age­ment.

→ Co-CEOs Justin Klee and Josh Co­hen have a new staffer at ALS-fo­cused Amy­lyx, and it’s Chris Aiel­lo, who’s been se­lect­ed as head of Cana­da and gen­er­al man­ag­er. At Sanofi Gen­zyme Cana­da, Aiel­lo was a dual busi­ness unit di­rec­tor of the rare dis­ease and the rare blood dis­or­ders units. He had been gen­er­al man­ag­er of Cana­da for Biover­a­tiv, which Sanofi swept up for $11.6 bil­lion in 2018.

Stu­art Chaf­fee

→ Kymera Ther­a­peu­tics co-founder Stu­art Chaf­fee is mov­ing on to be CBO of Affini­vax, awash in fund­ing af­ter Jan­u­ary’s $226 mil­lion round and striv­ing to un­seat Pfiz­er as the undis­put­ed Pre­vnar 13 cham­pi­on. Chaf­fee, a Bio­gen alum who was al­so Kymera’s head of busi­ness op­er­a­tions, just logged three years as CBO and CFO of Mar­cio Souza-led Prax­is Pre­ci­sion Med­i­cines.

→ Al­lakos — which added for­mer Au­dentes Ther­a­peu­tics CEO and pres­i­dent Na­tal­ie Holles to its board of di­rec­tors last De­cem­ber — has tapped Baird Rad­ford as CFO. Rad­ford comes from Aim­mune Ther­a­peu­tics, where he served as SVP of fi­nance.

Charles Mor­ris

→ Bel­gian CAR-T biotech Celyad On­col­o­gy has pegged Charles Mor­ris as CMO in the first C-suite change since David Gilham was bumped up to CSO last spring. Mor­ris cut his teeth at As­traZeneca with his in­volve­ment in de­vel­op­ing Faslodex and in the ear­ly clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of Ires­sa. Mor­ris comes to Celyad af­ter his stint as CMO at Ra­dius Health, now led by Kel­ly Mar­tin.

→ Steven Cha has been named CMO of nat­ur­al killer cell ther­a­py-fo­cused NKGen Biotech, fol­low­ing close be­hind CFO Philip Moody’s ap­point­ment two weeks ago. The ex-glob­al clin­i­cal lead in ear­ly on­col­o­gy de­vel­op­ment at Pfiz­er makes the switch to NKGen Biotech from Sa­mumed, which just re­brand­ed to Bios­plice Ther­a­peu­tics last week, where he was VP of on­col­o­gy.

→  Hi­malaya Ther­a­peu­tics has made the ad­di­tion of Nicholas Des­jardins as CFO and cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer. Des­jardins has ex­pe­ri­ence from Cowen and Stifel, AS­GARD Part­ners, Bei­jing REL­TEC and Price­Wa­ter­house, Bei­jing.

Lisa Per­ci­val

→ Helmed by Jeff Hat­field for the last six months, Vi­vid­ion out of San Diego has wel­comed Xi­ao­hu Deng as head of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions and Lisa Per­ci­val as head of reg­u­la­to­ry. Deng moves on to Vi­vid­ion af­ter a cou­ple years at Virac­ta Ther­a­peu­tics as SVP, prod­uct de­vel­op­ment, and from 2014-19 he was Ku­ra On­col­o­gy’s se­nior di­rec­tor, head of CMC. Per­ci­val, a 19-year reg­u­la­to­ry vet at Bris­tol My­ers, be­came an en­tre­pre­neur in res­i­dence, reg­u­la­to­ry strat­e­gy at At­las Ven­ture af­ter a short stint at Zaf­gen.

→ Cam­bridge, MA-based Nim­bus Ther­a­peu­tics has three new ex­ecs, nam­ing Avinash Phad­ke VP of CMC; Bhaskar Sri­vas­ta­va VP of ear­ly clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment; and Ajay Upad­hyay VP of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions. Phad­ke spent 18 years in nu­mer­ous ca­pac­i­ties at Achillion — bought out by Alex­ion for $930 mil­lion — work­ing his way up to VP, head of CMC. Sri­vas­ta­va piv­ots to Nim­bus af­ter a five-year tenure at Janssen that saw him be­come se­nior di­rec­tor, ear­ly de­vel­op­ment trans­la­tion­al sci­ence and med­i­cine in im­munol­o­gy. Fi­nal­ly, Upad­hyay is the ex-chief of staff of Glax­o­SmithK­line’s US on­col­o­gy busi­ness unit who lat­er moved on to Astel­las, leav­ing in 2018 as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of clin­i­cal and out­comes sci­ences.

Mar­cos Mil­la

→ With de­vel­op­ment of an an­ti­body un­der­way for Covid-19 af­ter a mod­est $16 mil­lion Se­ries B, Seat­tle’s Lu­men Bio­science has re­vealed a string of hires with Carl Ma­son as se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor, Cristin Wag­n­er as VP, head of le­gal, and Steven Lan­das as VP and con­troller. Ma­son had held the same ti­tle at Parex­el; Wag­n­er brings le­gal ex­per­tise in the Pa­cif­ic North­west from her time at Schwabe, Williamson & Wy­att; and Lan­das is the for­mer di­rec­tor of ac­count­ing at Seat­tle Ge­net­ics, now Seagen. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ex-Syn­thorx CSO Mar­cos Mil­la has joined Lu­men’s board of di­rec­tors.

→ Nex­im­mune, which is work­ing its way to an IPO and has the sup­port of the LLS on its nanopar­ti­cles work, has en­list­ed Chad Ru­bin as SVP, cor­po­rate af­fairs. Pri­or to Nex­im­mune, Ru­bin was with Sole­bury Trout.

→ Im­munomod­u­la­tion-fo­cused biotech Cy­to­com, which merged with Cleve­land Bi­o­Labs to grab a spot on Nas­daq, has pulled in Stephen Wil­son as head of glob­al in­no­va­tion. Wil­son hails from the La Jol­la In­sti­tute of Im­munol­o­gy, where he spent near­ly 25 years in bio­med­ical re­search and served as the re­search fa­cil­i­ty’s EVP and COO.

Tyrell Rivers

→ Gilead part­ner Goldfinch Bio has made a board of di­rec­tors triple play with Meryl Zaus­ner, Mo Cow­an and Tyrell Rivers. Zaus­ner, a long­time No­var­tis ex­ec, is al­so on the board at Seres; Cow­an was in­ter­im Sen­a­tor of Mass­a­chu­setts be­fore Ed Markey took the seat and is GE’s pres­i­dent, glob­al gov­ern­ment af­fairs and pol­i­cy and de­vel­oped mar­kets; and since 2014 Rivers has been ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment at As­traZeneca.

→ David Whead­on has made his way to the board of di­rec­tors at Vaxart, which is aim­ing to ad­vance its oral Covid-19 tablet vac­cine to Phase II tri­als, af­ter join­ing the board at Karuna Ther­a­peu­tics a few months back. Whead­on, the for­mer SVP, glob­al reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs, pa­tient safe­ty and qual­i­ty as­sur­ance at As­traZeneca, was al­so a reg­u­la­to­ry ex­ec at Ab­bott and GSK.

Kim Sablich

→ Just a short dri­ve from the Stan­ford cam­pus, Eiger Bio­Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals — the re­cip­i­ent of the first FDA ap­proval for pre­ma­ture ag­ing dis­or­der Prog­e­ria — has giv­en Kim Sablich a seat on the board of di­rec­tors. Sablich was in Peer Re­view al­most a year ago when she took the job of EVP, gen­er­al man­ag­er, North Amer­i­ca at Jazz Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ Leila Al­land and Don­ald Wuchterl are the lat­est mem­bers of Abeona’s board of di­rec­tors. Al­land, who has con­sid­er­able Big Phar­ma ex­pe­ri­ence in on­col­o­gy de­vel­op­ment at No­var­tis, Bris­tol My­ers and As­traZeneca, is CMO of PMV Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Af­ter five years at Au­dentes, Wuchterl just joined T-knife as chief man­u­fac­tur­ing of­fi­cer ear­li­er this month.

Bob Oliv­er

→ Psy­Bio Ther­a­peu­tics — which ear­li­er this month ap­point­ed Mike Spi­garel­li as CMO — has made a new ad­di­tion to its team with the ap­point­ment of Bob Oliv­er to its board of di­rec­tors. This isn’t Oliv­er’s first board ap­point­ment, he for­mer­ly sat on the board of Im­munomedics. Oliv­er brings with him his ex­pe­ri­ence from his time as pres­i­dent and CEO of Ot­su­ka Amer­i­ca Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal. Pri­or to that, he was with Wyeth and V Clin­Bio.

→ Third Rock-backed Cedil­la, which reeled in $57.6 mil­lion for small mol­e­cule pro­grams to fight can­cer last Oc­to­ber, has re­cruit­ed Chris Bow­den to its board of di­rec­tors. For­mer­ly, Bow­den was CMO of Agios. Pri­or to that, he was with Genen­tech and Janssen.

Yi Lar­son

→ Ver­sant and ven­Bio-backed Rayze­Bio has reeled in Yi Lar­son to its board of di­rec­tors. Lar­son for­mer­ly served as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of health­care in­vest­ment bank­ing at Gold­man Sachs. In ad­di­tion, Lar­son was CFO of Turn­ing Point Ther­a­peu­tics and cur­rent­ly serves as CFO of Lian­Bio.

→ Drug dis­cov­ery com­pa­ny C4X Dis­cov­ery Hold­ings has named Si­mon Har­ford as non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor. Har­ford is the cur­rent CFO at Al­bireo Phar­ma and was the for­mer CFO of Parex­el In­ter­na­tion­al. Pri­or to that, he was with GSK and Eli Lil­ly.

In ad­di­tion to Lar­son’s ap­point­ment, Rayze­Bio has brought on Derek Cole as head of dis­cov­ery; Kathie Huynh as VP of fi­nance; and Daniel Kim as se­nior di­rec­tor of ra­dio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

When Biolyse, an Ontario-based manufacturer of sterile injectables, forged a deal with Bolivia last week to manufacture up to 50 million J&J Covid-19 vaccine doses, the agreement kicked off what will prove to be a test case for how difficult the system of compulsory licenses is to navigate.

The first problem: When Biolyse asked J&J, via a March letter, to license its Covid-19 vaccine, manufacture it in Canada and pay 5% royalties on shipments to needy, low-income countries, J&J rejected the offer, refusing to negotiate. J&J also did not respond to a request for comment.

Novartis’ Entresto started the ACC weekend off rough with a trial flop in heart attack patients, slowing the drug’s push into earlier patients. Now, an NIH-sponsored study is casting doubt on Entresto’s use in the most severe heart failure patients, another black mark on the increasingly controversial drug’s record.

Entresto, a combination of sacubitril and valsartan, could not beat out valsartan alone in an outcomes head-to-head for severe heart failure patients with a reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), according to data presented Monday at the virtual American College of Cardiology meeting.

As Johnson & Johnson continues to roll out its Covid-19 shot, the company is also focused on another vaccine.

J&J is donating up to 200,000 doses of its Ebola vaccine regimen developed with Bavarian Nordic to help health authorities deal with a new outbreak in Sierra Leone. The regimen, Zabdeno and Mvabea, was granted prequalification by the WHO in April, which will help accelerate its registration in countries where Ebola is a threat.