Jay Fein­gold

→ Last week we told you about the CMO re­volv­ing door at ADC Ther­a­peu­tics, as Joseph Ca­mar­do re­placed the de­part­ing Jay Fein­gold. The next op­por­tu­ni­ty for Fein­gold in the CMO slot has opened up at an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate and mAb de­vel­op­er Pyx­is On­col­o­gy, which has added sev­er­al new ex­ecs and sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board mem­bers in re­cent months, in­clud­ing ex-Im­muno­vant CFO Pamela Yanchik Con­nealy. Be­fore his tenure at ADC, Fein­gold was Dai­ichi Sankyo’s VP of US med­ical af­fairs and chair­man of the Glob­al Med­ical Af­fairs Over­sight Com­mit­tee. With­in weeks in March, Pyx­is struck a li­cens­ing deal with Pfiz­er for two of its AD­Cs and raked in $152 mil­lion from a Se­ries B round.

Re­nee Bar­nett

→ Mean­while, Im­muno­vant has found Con­nealy’s re­place­ment, se­lect­ing Re­nee Bar­nett as fi­nance chief a month af­ter Roivant de­cid­ed to pump $200 mil­lion in­to a mem­ber of Vivek Ra­maswamy’s Vant fam­i­ly that has wres­tled with tri­al sus­pen­sions and freefalling stocks. Un­til now the chief in­te­gra­tion of­fi­cer at tele­men­tal health provider Able­To, Bar­nett has spent a large por­tion of her ca­reer at Eli Lil­ly, ris­ing to CFO of Aus­tria & Switzer­land and lat­er di­rec­tor of fi­nan­cial plan­ning & analy­sis. LDL lev­els (the bad cho­les­terol) shot up con­sid­er­ably in pa­tients on the high and low dos­es of Im­muno­vant’s an­ti­body IMVT-1401 for thy­roid eye dis­ease in Feb­ru­ary, and new da­ta in June did lit­tle to quell con­cerns even as Im­muno­vant al­so forges ahead with IMVT-1401 in myas­the­nia gravis and warm au­toim­mune he­molyt­ic ane­mia (WAI­HA).

An­drew Pec­o­ra

→ Robert Hariri has a new pres­i­dent work­ing along­side him at New Jer­sey-based Celu­lar­i­ty, an­oth­er biotech that chose the SPAC route to gal­lop in­to Nas­daq — do­ing so here with GX Ac­qui­si­tion Corp. A hema­tol­o­gist and on­col­o­gist, An­drew Pec­o­ra was pres­i­dent of the Physi­cian En­ter­prise and chief in­no­va­tion of­fi­cer at Hack­en­sack Merid­i­an Health, and he co-found­ed, chaired and helmed Prog­en­i­tor Cell Ther­a­py. When the merg­er closed in Ju­ly, Hariri told our Am­ber Tong that Celu­lar­i­ty had waved the white flag on its Covid-19 ef­forts with its NK cell ther­a­py ap­proach: “The change in man­age­ment of pa­tients at the hos­pi­tal set­ting made it very very dif­fi­cult to find pa­tients who met the in­clu­sion cri­te­ria,” he said.

Jesse Hall

→ One month sep­a­rates big hires at San Fran­cis­co’s Al­tru­Bio, with Jesse Hall join­ing Judy Chou’s squad as CMO fol­low­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of CFO Jeroen Gras­man in ear­ly Au­gust. Since 2018, Hall was CMO for Sub­lim­i­ty Ther­a­peu­tics be­fore tak­ing on the same role at Al­tru­Bio, which brought in a $63 mil­lion Se­ries A haul in the spring and has a Phase Ib study un­der­way for graft-ver­sus-host dis­ease with its lead drug nei­hulizum­ab. From 2009-13, Hall was a med­ical di­rec­tor at Am­gen be­fore be­com­ing an ex­ec­u­tive med­ical di­rec­tor at Ardea Bio­sciences.

In­grid Simms

→ San Diego pre­ci­sion on­col­o­gy biotech Lengo Ther­a­peu­tics — where Dave John­son and Enoch Kar­iu­ki have re­unit­ed as chair­man and CEO re­spec­tive­ly af­ter their Velos­Bio days — has three new ex­ecs on the ros­ter, in­clud­ing an­oth­er fa­mil­iar face. In­grid Simms (SVP and prin­ci­pal ac­count­ing of­fi­cer) held the same ti­tle at Velos­Bio and from 2013-20 was the VP of fi­nance for Alder Bio­Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Paul Pear­son (chief of de­vel­op­ment) was ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of pre­clin­i­cal drug me­tab­o­lism dur­ing his years at Mer­ck Re­search Lab­o­ra­to­ries, and lat­er be­came Am­gen’s glob­al head of phar­ma­co­ki­net­ics and drug me­tab­o­lism. And the 11 years at Pfiz­er’s La Jol­la Lab­o­ra­to­ries for Er­ic Gruff (SVP of CMC) cul­mi­nat­ed in his role as re­search team leader in de­vel­op­ment of di­a­betes and frailty (mus­cle wast­ing) ther­a­pies.

→ By rais­ing a sub­stan­tial chunk of change for its Se­ries B in Au­gust, Jef­frey Blue­stone’s Sono­ma Bio­ther­a­peu­tics has 265 mil­lion rea­sons to grab every­one’s at­ten­tion, and this week Sono­ma has pulled in Doug Shee­hy as chief le­gal of­fi­cer and sec­re­tary. The ex-gen­er­al coun­sel and sec­re­tary at Aim­mune, Shee­hy al­so de­vot­ed nine years to Codex­is, where he was EVP, chief ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cer, gen­er­al coun­sel and sec­re­tary.

Gu­darz Davar

→ CNS dis­ease-fo­cused Au­to­bahn Ther­a­peu­tics out of San Diego, lift­ing the lid in June 2020 with a $76 mil­lion round head­lined by ARCH and Cowen, has tapped Gu­darz Davar as CMO and pro­mot­ed Chan Beals to SVP, chief of trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine. Davar — who can sing his own vers­es of John­ny Cash’s “I’ve Been Every­where” with stints at Am­gen, Al­ler­gan and Bio­gen un­der his belt — just led R&D for a year at Aca­dia Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals af­ter he was in charge of glob­al neu­rol­o­gy clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Eli Lil­ly. Beals sped in­to Au­to­bahn in Jan­u­ary 2020 as SVP of trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine, and ear­li­er he was CMO at Abide Ther­a­peu­tics, which Lund­beck bought to boost a scuf­fling pipeline in the spring of 2019.

Sun­jeet Sawh­ney

→ No­vo Seeds led a mod­est fi­nanc­ing round in Oc­to­ber 2020 for Finnish can­cer start­up Rapp­ta Ther­a­peu­tics, fo­cused on pro­tein phos­phatase 2 (PP2A) in­hibitors. Found­ing CEO Mikko Man­nerkos­ki is slid­ing in­to the CFO role at Rapp­ta as Sun­jeet Sawh­ney steps in­to the spot­light in his place, ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly. Sawh­ney hails from Ipsen, where the new chief ex­ec­u­tive was glob­al head of the on­col­o­gy fran­chise, and his Big Phar­ma ex­pe­ri­ence start­ed ear­ly at Roche and Sanofi be­fore ris­ing to on­col­o­gy head of mar­ket­ing & com­mer­cial ex­cel­lence, emerg­ing growth mar­kets to con­clude his nine years at No­var­tis On­col­o­gy.

→ Start­ing Mon­day, Erik Skullerud will be CEO at Oslo, Nor­way-based Nordic Nanovec­tor, which takes aim at hema­to­log­i­cal can­cers with its ra­dioim­muno­con­ju­gate (RIC) Be­talutin. Skullerud suc­ceeds Ma­lene Brond­berg af­ter she had held the top spot on an in­ter­im ba­sis since Ju­ly. From 2000-16, Skullerud scaled the sales and mar­ket­ing peaks at Am­gen, leav­ing as the Big Phar­ma’s mar­ket­ing di­rec­tor, Eu­rope, on­col­o­gy/hema­tol­ogy.

Lars Boes­gaard

→ Stay­ing in Eu­rope, Dutch biotech AM-Phar­ma has brought on Lars Boes­gaard to be its CFO. The first AM-Phar­ma ex­ec­u­tive to be based in the US, the No­vo Nordisk and Alex­ion vet joins the com­pa­ny from Co­lum­bia Care just a week af­ter Ky­owa Kirin paid the biotech more than $23 mil­lion up­front for de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights in Japan on kid­ney drug ilo­fo­tase al­fa.

Tim­o­thy Ki­ef­fer

→ Proof-of-con­cept da­ta from a sin­gle pa­tient were re­leased in June from Vi­a­Cyte’s stem cell treat­ment for type 1 di­a­betes, and CEO Michael Yang has found a new CSO with the req­ui­site stem cell back­ground in this in­di­ca­tion. Tim­o­thy Ki­ef­fer was in charge of the Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Mol­e­c­u­lar and Cel­lu­lar Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Co­lum­bia, where he was al­so part of the Di­a­betes Re­search Group at the school’s Life Sci­ences In­sti­tute. The en­Gene co-founder re­places Kevin D’Amour, now the chief sci­en­tist at Brook­lyn Im­munoTher­a­peu­tics.

Ian Clark

→ Kyver­na Ther­a­peu­tics has re­cruit­ed two new faces with the ap­point­ments of for­mer Genen­tech CEO Ian Clark as chair of its board of di­rec­tors and Karen Walk­er as chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer. Pri­or to his sev­en-year tenure at the helm of Genen­tech, Clark was serv­ing as the com­pa­ny’s EVP of com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions and SVP and gen­er­al man­ag­er of bio-on­col­o­gy. Ear­li­er in his ca­reer, Clark served in a va­ri­ety of roles at No­var­tis, Sanofi, Ivax and Sear­le. This is far from Clark’s first board seat; he cur­rent­ly sits on the boards of Take­da, Agios Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Guardant Health, Ole­ma Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Corvus Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Avro­bio.

Mean­while, Walk­er comes to Kyver­na af­ter stints at Roche/Genen­tech, Seagen, No­var­tis, Am­gen, Bay­er and Bris­tol My­ers Squibb. Walk­er most re­cent­ly served as se­nior ad­vi­sor, cell and gene ther­a­py man­u­fac­tur­ing at Roche/Genen­tech.

→ Found­ed by Bob Langer and head­ing in­to Phase III with its lead drug for chron­ic rhi­nos­i­nusi­tis, Lyra Ther­a­peu­tics has locked in Ja­son Cav­a­lier as CFO. Af­ter stops at Bear Stearns, Bar­clays and RBC Cap­i­tal Mar­kets, Cav­a­lier was Can­tor Fitzger­ald’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, head of life sci­ences merg­ers & ac­qui­si­tions.

Han Lee

→ Han Lee will de­part from his CFO po­si­tion at Ar­cel­lx to per­form the same role at Neo­gene Ther­a­peu­tics. Pri­or to Ar­cel­lx, Lee served as se­nior di­rec­tor in the cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment and ven­tures group at As­traZeneca. Over the sum­mer, the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia TCR biotech al­so added Brent Pfeif­f­en­berg­er as COO.

→ David Liebowitz is step­ping over to Hous­ton-based DNA­trix as CMO. Liebowitz most re­cent­ly served as VP of clin­i­cal on­col­o­gy at Xen­cor. Pri­or to that stint, Liebowitz was the CMO for Vaxart and CSO and CMO of Vi­val­di Bio­sciences. Ear­li­er in his ca­reer, Liebowitz was with Galileo Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Am­gen and Im­munex.

Jaa Rober­son

→ The sun shone bright­ly over South San Fran­cis­co pe­di­atric can­cer play­er Day One Bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals when it start­ed trad­ing on Nas­daq with the tick­er $DAWN af­ter an up­sized IPO hit $160 mil­lion in May. CEO Je­re­my Ben­der con­tin­ues to piece to­geth­er the C-suite with Jaa Rober­son climb­ing on board as chief peo­ple of­fi­cer, piv­ot­ing from her role as a hu­man re­sources ex­ec at Bel­licum. Af­ter six years at Genen­tech as an HR busi­ness part­ner, Rober­son spent a year lead­ing HR at Achao­gen.

John Limon­gel­li

→ Thomas Jef­fer­son Uni­ver­si­ty spin­out Im­vax, led by ex-Spark COO John Furey, has locked in John Limon­gel­li as chief le­gal of­fi­cer. Limon­gel­li was gen­er­al coun­sel at Neos Ther­a­peu­tics and then at Tra­ve­na, where he tacked on the chief ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cer ti­tle. Im­vax re­vealed pos­i­tive Phase Ib da­ta on its glioblas­toma mul­ti­forme drug IGV-001 in Jan­u­ary and has brought COO Sean Hem­ing­way and CFO Josh Munt­ner in­to the fold this year.

→ Pitts­burgh’s Krys­tal Biotech has added Lau­rent Goux as their gen­er­al man­ag­er for Eu­rope. Goux comes from Swiss der­ma­to­log­i­cal phar­ma Gal­der­ma, where he was in charge of glob­al strate­gic mar­ket­ing and mar­ket ac­cess. Krys­tal Biotech is in the mid­dle of a Phase III tri­al for epi­der­mol­y­sis bul­losa.

→ NeuBase Ther­a­peu­tics resur­faces in Peer Re­view yet again, as the Pitts­burgh ge­net­ic med­i­cine biotech waves in An­tho­ny Rosso­man­do as chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer. A staff sci­en­tist at Bay­er in the 1990s, Rosso­man­do has roamed the land­scape ex­ten­sive­ly, from his nine years at Bio­gen to his three years at Al­ny­lam as se­nior di­rec­tor of siR­NA bio­pro­cess­ing. The Anokion and Alex­ion vet heads to NeuBase af­ter a brief stay as chief process de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer at Pine­tree Ther­a­peu­tics. With­in a year’s time, NeuBase has al­so bol­stered its C-suite with a new COO, CSO, CMO and chief busi­ness and strat­e­gy of­fi­cer.

Neal Mu­ni

→ Just a week af­ter tap­ping Jeff Hack­man as pres­i­dent and CEO, Re­Form Bi­o­log­ics is bring­ing in Neal Mu­ni as EVP and COO. Pri­or to join­ing Re­Form, Mu­ni most re­cent­ly served as the CEO of Azu­ri­ty, which is­sued a na­tion­al re­call of one lot of Fir­vanq last week.

→ Vi­va LaFrance: Part­ner­ing with Ra­dioMedix on the pro­duc­tion of its ra­dio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Plus Ther­a­peu­tics out of Austin, TX has ap­point­ed Nor­man LaFrance as CMO ef­fec­tive “on or around” Dec. 8. Be­fore join­ing the ra­dio­ther­a­peu­tic de­vel­op­er, LaFrance was SVP and CMO of Ju­bi­lant Phar­ma, and in the mid 2000s the for­mer mem­ber of the Johns Hop­kins med­ical fac­ul­ty was Bausch + Lomb’s VP, glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal de­vel­op­ment.

Gus­ta­vo Stolovitzky

→ Se­ma4, the J&J and Sanofi-part­nered pa­tient da­ta, test­ing and ge­nomics plat­form that merged with Eli Cas­din’s $450 mil­lion SPAC, has pulled in Gus­ta­vo Stolovitzky as CSO. Stolovitzky has spent the last two decades at IBM Re­search, where he was ap­point­ed IBM fel­low. Pri­or to his ap­point­ment as fel­low, Stolovitzky was the di­rec­tor of the trans­la­tion­al sys­tems bi­ol­o­gy and nanobiotech­nol­o­gy pro­gram.

→ Re­solve Bio­sciences has named Erik Wiberg as CFO. Wiberg comes aboard from RE­VA Med­ical, where he al­so served as CFO. Pri­or to his stint at RE­VA, Wiberg served at Gy­ros Pro­tein Tech­nolo­gies, Ther­mo Fish­er Sci­en­tif­ic, Al­liedSig­nal and the Cham­ber­lain Group.

Wendy Dwyer

→ San­iona has brought on Wendy Dwyer as CBO. Dwyer joins the com­pa­ny from Sur­face On­col­o­gy, where she served in the same role as CBO. Dwyer brings with her ex­pe­ri­ence from her time at Por­tal In­stru­ments, Ipsen Bio­science, As­traZeneca, Anti­gen­ics (now Agenus), En­do Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and In­de­vus Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

In ad­di­tion, the San­iona has giv­en a seat to Robert Hoff­man on its board of di­rec­tors. This isn’t Hoff­man’s first board ap­point­ment, he cur­rent­ly sits on the boards of ASLAN Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Kin­tara Ther­a­peu­tics and An­tibe Ther­a­peu­tics. Most re­cent­ly, Hoff­man served as CFO of Heron Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Hoff­man jump­start­ed his ca­reer at Are­na Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ Xen­ter has wel­comed Mark Tur­co aboard as pres­i­dent of its Xen­ter Med­ical Tech­nolo­gies busi­ness unit. Tur­co hails from Sir­tex Med­ical, where he served as EVP of re­search & de­vel­op­ment and glob­al CMO. In ad­di­tion, Tur­co pre­vi­ous­ly served as CMO of Co­vi­di­en and lat­er VP and CMO of Medtron­ic’s aor­tic, pe­riph­er­al and vas­cu­lar di­vi­sions.

Marni Kot­tle

→ Nor­bert Bischof­berg­er at Kro­nos Bio has looked to his old stomp­ing grounds at Gilead to wel­come Marni Kot­tle as SVP of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions and in­vestor re­la­tions. Kot­tle joined Gilead in 2013, over­lap­ping with Bischof­berg­er’s 28-year run with the Cal­i­for­nia phar­ma, and was VP of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions af­ter a ca­reer in me­dia where she was a re­porter for the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle, Bloomberg and the Seat­tle Post-In­tel­li­gencer. Kro­nos got in on the 2020 IPO craze last fall, top­ping $250 mil­lion in an up­sized of­fer­ing.

Nicole Chi­ef­fo

→ It’s been a steady stream of new hires and pro­mo­tions at South San Fran­cis­co-based Sutro Bio­phar­ma, and this week is no dif­fer­ent with the in­tro­duc­tions of Nicole Chi­ef­fo (VP of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions) and Wern­er Rubas (VP of pre­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment). Sutro poach­es Chi­ef­fo from Janssen, hold­ing such posts as se­nior di­rec­tor, on­col­o­gy glob­al op­er­a­tions head and lead on­col­o­gy clin­i­cal sci­en­tist. Rubas spent the last nine years at Nek­tar and was ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor in non-clin­i­cal phar­ma­co­ki­net­ics and phar­ma­co­dy­nam­ics. Along with Trevor Hal­lam’s pro­mo­tion to pres­i­dent of re­search and CSO, Sutro’s oth­er lead­er­ship moves in 2021 in­clude ap­point­ing CCO Jane Chung, pro­mot­ing David Paul­ing to gen­er­al coun­sel and el­e­vat­ing Robert Kiss to SVP of process and an­a­lyt­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

→ jCyte just keeps on grow­ing too — its lat­est new­com­er is Vic­tor Chao as the Cal­i­for­nia biotech’s first VP of CMC op­er­a­tions, ap­point­ed late last week. Chao ar­rived at jCyte af­ter leav­ing San­ten Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals as its head of com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions in North and Latin Amer­i­ca. The new jCyte staffers un­der first-year CEO Shan­non Blalock run the gamut from CFO Adam Walsh to gen­er­al coun­sel John Shol­ar, among sev­er­al oth­ers.

Tim Largen

→ Af­ter adding Daniela Dra­go from Bio­gen as chief reg­u­la­to­ry of­fi­cer last month, Au­ri­on Biotech ap­points Tim Largen as VP of man­u­fac­tur­ing. Largen over­saw man­u­fac­tur­ing at Lykan Bio­science af­ter spend­ing near­ly a decade climb­ing the ranks at Den­dreon. Au­ri­on, which has head­quar­ters in the US and Japan, is fo­cused on push­ing for­ward its first can­di­date, a cell ther­a­py to treat corneal en­dothe­lial dys­func­tion.

→ Ae­tion, the New York health tech start­up that has for­mer FDA com­mis­sion­er Scott Got­tlieb sit­ting on its board of di­rec­tors, has named Mar­la Kessler its first chief cus­tomer of­fi­cer. Kessler comes to the com­pa­ny from IQVIA, where she served as SVP, strat­e­gy, mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. In ad­di­tion to her role at IQVIA, Kessler has served at Pfiz­er and McK­in­sey. Kessler cur­rent­ly sits on the board of Iron­wood Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ Ra­tio­nal Vac­cines, fo­cused on the treat­ment and pre­ven­tion of her­pes, has wel­comed Ker­stin Westritschnig as CMO. Westritschnig hails from Ape­iron Bi­o­log­ics, where she al­so served in the role of CMO. Pri­or to that, she was SVP and mem­ber of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee of Val­ne­va.

Christi­na Isac­son

→ Run­ning in par­al­lel with the news of a third and largest ven­ture fund — $375 mil­lion, to be ex­act — Light­stone Ven­tures has al­so named Christi­na Isac­son as part­ner and Young Kwon as op­er­at­ing part­ner. The ex-Third Rock prin­ci­pal and in­ter­im head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and strat­e­gy at Deci­bel, Isac­son had been CBO at Ma­gen­ta Ther­a­peu­tics un­til this March. Kwon spent a decade with Mo­men­ta, ini­tial­ly as VP of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and then work­ing his way up to chief fi­nan­cial and busi­ness of­fi­cer.

→ Lon­don-based VC Abing­worth has named Jay Cui and Lu­cille Con­roy prin­ci­pals, while Diya Mal­ho­tra jumps ship from LEK Con­sult­ing to be an in­vest­ment man­ag­er. Cui was most re­cent­ly a di­rec­tor at Ab­b­Vie Ven­tures, while Con­roy was a se­nior as­so­ciate at F-Prime Cap­i­tal af­ter al­most two years at McK­in­sey.

Kathy Biber­stein

→ Churn­ing out biotechs at its usu­al steady clip, Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing has brought on Kathy Biber­stein as gen­er­al coun­sel and will of­fi­cial­ly join the team on Mon­day. In 2018 Biber­stein wrapped up a 15-year as­so­ci­a­tion with Alk­er­mes in which she wore a num­ber of ex­ec­u­tive hats — EVP, chief ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cer, chief com­pli­ance of­fi­cer, chief risk of­fi­cer, and chief le­gal of­fi­cer. She’s al­so left the board of Nes­san Berming­ham-chaired Triplet Ther­a­peu­tics af­ter on­ly serv­ing less than a year in that ca­pac­i­ty.

Eliz­a­beth Bekiroğlu

→ No yel­low cards for Icosavax as the Seat­tle-based vac­cine biotech push­es for­ward with Neil King’s VLP “soc­cer ball” tech­nol­o­gy — and Eliz­a­beth Bekiroğlu in­tends to keep it that way as gen­er­al coun­sel. Bekiroğlu stays in Seat­tle af­ter be­ing Seagen’s as­so­ciate gen­er­al coun­sel, and once up­on a time she was gen­er­al coun­sel at Emer­gent BioSo­lu­tions. Icosavax end­ed up rais­ing $182 mil­lion in an up­sized IPO this sum­mer.

→ Hex­Trans­for­ma has reeled in Kevin Mor­ris as chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer. Mor­ris pre­vi­ous­ly served as VP of en­gi­neer­ing at Me­di­da­ta So­lu­tions. Mor­ris al­so brings with him ex­pe­ri­ence from his roles at Rovi Eu­rope (now Ti­Vo), Macro­vi­sion and Shal­bourne Tech­nol­o­gy.

→ Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease-fo­cused Alzheon has brought on two new hires with the ap­point­ments of Adem Al­bayrak as head of op­er­a­tions and Earvin Liang as VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. Al­bayrak comes from Health Cat­a­lyst’s life sci­ences busi­ness, where he served as SVP for tech­nol­o­gy. Ear­li­er in his ca­reer, Al­bayrak worked at Knome and the Dana-Far­ber Can­cer In­sti­tute.

Mean­while, Liang brings with him ex­pe­ri­ence from his time at Elan Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Janssen, Alzheimer’s Im­munother­a­py and Tran­si­tion Ther­a­peu­tics.

Bri­an Di Do­na­to

→ Jim Wil­son‘s new start­up iECURE, which came from his work with Tachi Ya­ma­da, has reeled in Bri­an Di Do­na­to to its board of di­rec­tors. Di Do­na­to is cur­rent­ly CFO and head of strat­e­gy at Im­muno­core. Pri­or to his work with Im­muno­core, Di Do­na­to was SVP and CFO at Achillion.

Don Nichol­son

→ Ex-Nim­bus CEO Don Nichol­son has been elect­ed in­de­pen­dent chair­man of the board at Dan­ish-Bel­gian neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease biotech Mu­na Ther­a­peu­tics. Nichol­son, who’s on the boards of Kymera and Gen­er­a­tion Bio, al­so chairs Disc Med­i­cine, Jnana Ther­a­peu­tics and NodThera.

→ ROME if you want to: Up­on the news of the Se­ries B fi­nanc­ing at Rosana Kapeller’s ROME Ther­a­peu­tics, Steven Kaf­ka and Jim Tren­kle have tak­en seats on the board of di­rec­tors. Kaf­ka is man­ag­ing part­ner at Sec­tion 32 and Tren­kle leads in­vest­ments at Sanofi Ven­tures, two VCs that fac­tored heav­i­ly in­to the $77 mil­lion round.

Deb­o­rah Dun­sire

→ Deb­o­rah Dun­sire has been ap­point­ed to the board of di­rec­tors at Sy­ros, which is pre­sent­ing Phase I da­ta for its can­cer drug SY-5609 at ES­MO. For­mer­ly a board mem­ber at Alex­ion and Al­ler­gan, Dun­sire has helmed Lund­beck since 2018 and is on the board of di­rec­tors at Ul­tragenyx.

John John­son

→ Chris­t­ian Itin’s crew at CAR-T out­fit Au­to­lus has named long­time biotech ex­ec John John­son chair­man of the board. The Big Phar­ma vet chaired the board at Strong­bridge Bio­phar­ma un­til he took over as CEO in Ju­ly 2020, but John­son has re­tained his board seat af­ter Garheng Kong suc­ceed­ed him as chair­man.

→ Gaithers­burg, MD-based Adap­tive Phage Ther­a­peu­tics, which scored a Se­ries B that ex­ceed­ed $40 mil­lion in May, has ap­point­ed George­town pro­fes­sor Jesse Good­man to the board of di­rec­tors. From 2009-14, Good­man was chief sci­en­tist at the FDA, and for three years with­in that pe­ri­od he took on the role of deputy com­mis­sion­er for sci­ence and pub­lic health.

Ruth Williams-Brink­ley

→ Two days be­fore reach­ing a li­cens­ing deal with Vi­for Phar­ma, for­mer Mar­tin Shkre­li com­pa­ny Tra­vere Ther­a­peu­tics added Ruth Williams-Brink­ley to its board of di­rec­tors. Williams-Brink­ley over­sees Kaiser Per­ma­nente’s op­er­a­tions in DC and sur­round­ing ar­eas, and was the CEO for mul­ti­ple hos­pi­tal sys­tems in her ca­reer.

→ Ex-Kymab CEO Si­mon Sturge’s next en­deav­or will be as ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of fi­bro­sis biotech Me­di­ar Ther­a­peu­tics out of Cam­bridge, MA. Sturge helmed Kymab un­til it was sold for close to $1.5 bil­lion in one of sev­er­al M&A deals Paul Hud­son has made at Sanofi this year.

Jen­nifer Her­ron

→ ADC Ther­a­peu­tics SVP and chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer Jen­nifer Her­ron has joined the board of di­rec­tors at Chip Clark-led can­cer biotech Geno­cea Bio­sciences. The 10-year Bris­tol My­ers vet has al­so been CCO at Im­muno­Gen and Ari­ad Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ Gilead and Pfiz­er vet Roger Mills has made his way to the board of di­rec­tors at Philadel­phia-based En­terin. Mills was EVP of de­vel­op­ment and then CMO at Aca­dia Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals af­ter his tenure as Pfiz­er’s VP of glob­al R&D.

Ji­gar Raythatha

→ Ji­gar Raythatha be­comes a mem­ber of the board of di­rec­tors at Jounce Ther­a­peu­tics as Third Rock part­ner Cary Pf­ef­fer re­signs from the board on Dec. 31. Raythatha helmed Con­stel­la­tion Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals from 2017 un­til its $1.7 bil­lion sale to Mor­phoSys, which was an­nounced in June.

→ Owl­stone Med­ical has ap­point­ed Mark Capone to its board of di­rec­tors as an in­de­pen­dent non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor. Capone is the for­mer pres­i­dent and CEO of Myr­i­ad Ge­net­ics and pre­vi­ous­ly held a 17-year stint at Eli Lil­ly.

Ruth McK­er­nan

→ Cu­mu­lus Neu­ro­science’s own founder and di­rec­tor, Ruth McK­er­nan, will be adding on the role of chair to her du­ties. McK­er­nan, who is a neu­ro­sci­en­tist, is al­so a ven­ture part­ner at the De­men­tia Dis­cov­ery Fund. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, McK­er­nan has pre­vi­ous­ly served as SVP at Pfiz­er and head of the Mer­ck Neu­ro­science Re­search Cen­tre.

→ Fun­gal dis­ease-fo­cused F2G has added Camil­la Soen­der­by to its board of di­rec­tors. Soen­der­by most re­cent­ly served as chief pa­tient val­ue & prod­uct strat­e­gy of­fi­cer at Take­da af­ter its ac­qui­si­tion of Shire. Pri­or to that, Soen­der­by was SVP, head of glob­al prod­uct strat­e­gy for Shire, and held roles at Roche, Ab­bott (now Ab­b­Vie) and Scher­ing-Plough.

→ Phase­Bio Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has brought on William Humphries to its board of di­rec­tors. Humphries is cur­rent­ly the CEO of Isosce­les Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and pre­vi­ous­ly served at Or­tho Der­ma­to­log­ics, the North Amer­i­can busi­ness of Merz and Stiefel Lab­o­ra­to­ries.

In ad­di­tion, an­oth­er di­rec­tor at Phase­Bio, Justin Klein, is step­ping down.

→ Snap­drag­on Chem­istry has ap­point­ed Don­na Black­mond to its sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board. Black­mond, a chem­i­cal en­gi­neer­ing pro­fes­sor, is cur­rent­ly the John C. Mar­tin en­dowed chair in chem­istry at the Scripps Re­search In­sti­tute.

Paul Schloess­er al­so con­tributed to this edi­tion.