Robert Ford Ab­bott

→ Ab­bott Lab­o­ra­to­ries has named a suc­ces­sor to CEO Miles White af­ter he an­nounced that he was step­ping down in March af­ter 21 years of ser­vice. Robert Ford, the com­pa­ny’s COO and pres­i­dent, will take the helm. Ford is known for his work in the $25 bil­lion merg­er be­tween St. Jude Med­ical in­to Ab­bott in Jan­u­ary 2017. White will re­main with the com­pa­ny as ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of the board. 

→ Af­ter snap­ping up No­var­tis’ Swiss fa­cil­i­ty, No­var­tis Cen­ter of Ex­cel­lence, in Ju­ly, Lon­za has an­nounced that their CEO, Marc Funk, is hit­ting the ex­it for “per­son­al rea­sons.” Funk has been the CEO of the com­pa­ny for less than a year — brought on­to the com­pa­ny back in March. In the mean­time, chair­man Al­bert Baehny will serve as in­ter­im CEO. 

Marc Funk Lon­za

→ Rakuten Med­ical — which, back in Au­gust, re­ceived $100 mil­lion in a fund­ing round — has wel­comed Bren­ton Keath as CFO and Dana John­son as gen­er­al coun­sel and cor­po­rate sec­re­tary. Keath pre­vi­ous­ly served as head of fi­nance for Rakuten Com­merce and held the role of VP of merg­ers & ac­qui­si­tions in­te­gra­tion at Rakuten USA. Most re­cent­ly, John­son com­plet­ed a stint at Grit­stone On­col­o­gy. In ad­di­tion, the com­pa­ny ap­point­ed co-founder and gen­er­al part­ner of DCM Ven­tures, David Chao, and COO and group EVP of Rakuten, Ken­taro Hyakuno, as di­rec­tors to the com­pa­ny’s board. 

→ In­vest­ment group Abing­worth has tapped Neil Coop­er as CFO. Coop­er is suc­ceed­ing James Abell, who is re­tir­ing af­ter 21 years of ser­vice. Coop­er joins the com­pa­ny af­ter a stint as fi­nance di­rec­tor at Ken­net Part­ners. He has pre­vi­ous­ly served in roles at Robert W Baird, Baird Cap­i­tal Part­ners Eu­rope and Ad­vent Ven­ture Part­ners. 

→ Ox­ford, UK-based re­search com­pa­ny Arc­toris — which closed a seed fund­ing round of £3.2 mil­lion back in Sep­tem­ber — has wel­comed GSK vet Daniel Thomas as head of dis­cov­ery bi­ol­o­gy. In ad­di­tion, Arc­toris ap­point­ed for­mer CEO of Ge­nomics Eng­land John Mattick to the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors.

→ Verseau Ther­a­peu­tics — which re­cent­ly armed with Langer tech and $50 mil­lion to help bring their first macrophage check­point mod­u­la­tor (MCM) for the treat­ment of can­cer to the clin­ic — has wel­comed Tim Smith as CBO. Smith has served in roles at Do­va Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, IDEAYA Bio­sciences, Cleave Bio­sciences and as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment Cel­gene — where he helped lead the ac­qui­si­tion of Re­cep­tos and col­lab­o­ra­tion with Jounce Ther­a­peu­tics.

Bruce Giv­en

→ Ar­row­head Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has an­nounced that the com­pa­ny’s COO and head of R&D, Bruce Giv­en, is re­tir­ing from the com­pa­ny. Giv­en joined the com­pa­ny in 2011 and pri­or to that was the CEO of Leonar­do Biosys­tems. His pre­vi­ous stints in­clude CEO of En­cy­sive Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and roles at J&J, San­doz Phar­ma and Scher­ing-Plough.  

→ Ru­bius Ther­a­peu­tics — a clin­i­cal-stage bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny de­vel­op­ing a new class of red blood cell ther­a­peu­tics — has named Maiken Ke­son-Brookes as chief le­gal of­fi­cer and cor­po­rate sec­re­tary. Ke­son-Brookes most re­cent­ly served as gen­er­al coun­sel at Syn­log­ic and pri­or to that was the SVP and gen­er­al coun­sel at uniQure. Her pre­vi­ous stints in­clude roles at Fo­rum Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Gen­zyme and Bio­gen. 

→ RubrYc Ther­a­peu­tics — fo­cused on can­cer and au­toim­mune dis­eases — has hired Rakesh Ver­ma as SVP, dis­cov­ery & de­vel­op­ment. Be­fore join­ing the com­pa­ny, Ver­ma was the site-head of AR­MO Bio­sciences and as­so­ciate VP at Eli Lil­ly. 

→ Aruna Bio — fo­cused on the de­vel­op­ment of neur­al ex­o­somes for the treat­ment of neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases — has brought on Re­nee Boern­er as VP of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs. Boern­er joins the com­pa­ny from Bavar­i­an Nordic, where she served as head of US reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs. Pri­or to that, she was the head of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs at BioDe­liv­ery Sci­ences. 

→ Lim­i­nal Bio­Sciences — de­vel­op­ing treat­ments for pa­tients with liv­er, res­pi­ra­to­ry and kid­ney dis­ease — has hired Moira Daniels as head of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs and qual­i­ty as­sur­ance. Daniels joins the com­pa­ny from UCB Phar­ma as their VP, head of glob­al reg­u­la­to­ry op­er­a­tions. Daniels’ pre­vi­ous stints in­clude roles at As­traZeneca, Pfiz­er and Eli Lil­ly. 

Nor­man Bay­lor Bi­o­log­ics Con­sult­ing

→ Eq­ui­ty firm CBC Group has ap­point­ed Ker­ry Blan­chard as op­er­at­ing part­ner. Most re­cent­ly, Blan­chard served as CSO at In­novent Bi­o­log­ics, where he over­saw the NDA prepa­ra­tion and sub­mis­sion of the com­pa­ny’s PD1 an­ti­body, sin­til­imab (ap­proved in late 2018 and launched in Chi­na in 2019). Pre­vi­ous­ly, Blan­chard held a stint as SVP of Lil­ly Chi­na Drug De­vel­op­ment and Ex­ter­nal In­no­va­tion.

→ French vac­cine de­vel­op­er Val­ne­va — which closed out a part­ner­ship with Glax­o­SmithK­line in June — has added two vac­cine ex­perts, Nor­man Bay­lor and George Siber, to its sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board. Bay­lor is cur­rent­ly the CEO of Bi­o­log­ics Con­sult­ing Group and is a for­mer di­rec­tor of the of­fice of vac­cines re­search and re­view at the FDA Cen­ter for Bi­o­log­ics Eval­u­a­tion and Re­search — fa­cil­i­tat­ing the de­vel­op­ment and li­cen­sure of vac­cines such as HPV and in­fluen­za. Siber is the for­mer di­rec­tor at the Mass­a­chu­setts Bi­o­log­ic Lab and EVP and CSO at Wyeth Vac­cines.

An FDA advisory committee noted with concern a small safety database but unanimously endorsed a Horizon Therapeutics drug for a rare eye autoimmune disease that can blind patients: teprotumumab for thyroid eye disease (TED).

“It was a pretty easy vote,” said Erica Brittain, an NIH biostatistician and one of the 12 panelists on FDA’s Dermatologic and Ophthalmic Drugs Advisory Committee.

Timing is Everything
When we launched Octagon Therapeutics in late 2017, I was convinced that the time was right for a new antibiotic discovery venture. The company was founded on impressive academic pedigree and the management team had known each other for years. Our first program was based on a compelling approach to targeting central metabolism in the most dangerous bacterial pathogens. We had already shown a high level of efficacy in animal infection models and knew our drug was safe in humans.

Amid Shehnaaz Suliman’s lengthy resume it could be easy to miss her stint leading early-stage Alzheimer’s R&D at Genentech, where she oversaw a program for the ill-fated crenezumab and initiated one of the first prevention studies around the devastating neurodegenerative disease. But it is this experience that she — after thinking long and hard about her next career move over the past months — will be leaning heavily on as the first president and COO of Alector.

Biogen’s fierce focus on disorders of the brain has hit another roadblock.

On Friday, the US drugmaker — which recently resurrected its amyloid-targeting Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab — said its anti-tau drug, gosuranemab, failed a mid-stage study in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare brain disorder that results from deterioration of brain cells that control movement and thought.