Uzair Qadeer

→ Alex­ion has carved out a new po­si­tion for chief di­ver­si­ty of­fi­cer and filled it with an in­side pro­mo­tion.

Uzair Qadeer will now be re­spon­si­ble for their “di­ver­si­ty, in­clu­sion and be­long­ing” strat­e­gy, look­ing to re­shape the biotech’s cor­po­rate cul­ture. A vet­er­an of De­loitte and Bris­tol My­ers Squibb, Qadeer was work­ing on ex­ec­u­tive coach­ing and help­ing cre­ate the di­ver­si­ty pro­gram he now leads.

“At Alex­ion, we be­lieve that di­ver­si­ty is hav­ing a seat at the ta­ble, in­clu­sion is hav­ing a voice, and be­long­ing is hav­ing that voice be heard. Our work isn’t done un­til our em­ploy­ees and pa­tients can feel a true sense of be­long­ing,” Qadeer said. “Mag­ne­tiz­ing and in­cu­bat­ing di­verse tal­ent will al­low us to har­ness di­verse in­sights that fu­el in­no­va­tion and cre­ate val­ue for the pa­tients we serve. I am com­mit­ted to ac­ti­vat­ing this pur­pose­ful vi­sion.”

Yvonne Green­street

→ Af­ter a 17-year stint at Al­ny­lam, pres­i­dent Bar­ry Greene is leav­ing the RNAi biotech and hand­ing the reins over to COO Yvonne Green­street. Green­street, who was SVP of med­i­cines de­vel­op­ment at Pfiz­er and an SVP at Glax­o­SmithK­line be­fore join­ing Al­ny­lam in 2016, takes up the pres­i­dent post at a com­pa­ny fac­ing an im­por­tant and dif­fi­cult tran­si­tion. CEO John Maraganore has set am­bi­tious goals for the com­pa­ny, aim­ing to move them in­to a top 5 biotech in the next cou­ple years, along­side the likes of Am­gen and Re­gen­eron.

“Yvonne has got an in­cred­i­ble strate­gic mind; she’s in­cred­i­bly ef­fec­tive op­er­a­tional­ly,” Maraganore told End­point News’ Ja­son Mast. “With­out a doubt I think our fu­ture is in great hands.”

Mean­while, a search is on­go­ing at Al­ny­lam for a new chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer.

→ Get­ting in the Covid-19 sweep­stakes with lenzilum­ab be­ing used in a com­bo with remde­sivir for NI­AID’s Big Ef­fect Tri­al, Cameron Dur­rant–led Hu­mani­gen has al­so been re­vamp­ing its staff, this time with Tim­o­thy Mor­ris tak­ing over as COO and CFO. Con­cur­rent with the move, Mor­ris will step down from Burlingame, CA-based Hu­mani­gen’s board of di­rec­tors, of which he had been a mem­ber since 2016. Mor­ris leaves his CFO role at Io­vance and has held that role at a string of oth­er com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing Acel­Rx, Vivus and Quest­cor Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Else­where at Hu­mani­gen, Bob Atwill steps in to a new­ly-cre­at­ed role as head of the Asia-Pa­cif­ic re­gion. Cur­rent­ly a prin­ci­pal at cross-bor­der M&A provider Eaton Square with the same re­gion­al fo­cus, Atwill has been an ex­ec at such Aus­tralian com­pa­nies as Fit­genes and Ben­itec Bio­phar­ma.

Shree­r­am Arad­hye

→ Rid­ing high with its Phase I da­ta re­leased yes­ter­day from their Roche-part­nered RNAi pro­gram for hep B, Dicer­na has found a CMO to take the place of the re­tir­ing Ralf Rosskamp. No­var­tis vet Shree­r­am Arad­hye will be­come EVP and CMO on Sept. 8, while Rosskamp will hold a con­sult­ing role at least through June 2021. Arad­hye makes his way to Dicer­na af­ter be­ing chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer at Ax­cel­la, and for 20 years he held nu­mer­ous ti­tles at No­var­tis and its glob­al af­fil­i­ates, no­tably as glob­al head of med­ical af­fairs and CMO, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ No stranger to the C-suite, Paul High­am has tak­en the reins as CEO of Va­lo Ther­a­peu­tics, an im­munother­a­py play­er with of­fices in Ox­ford and Helsin­ki de­vel­op­ing can­cer treat­ments us­ing tu­mor anti­gen-coat­ed on­colyt­ic virus­es. High­am has al­so held the top spot at two Ger­man biotechs, Gly­co­tope and Im­mat­ics Biotech­nolo­gies. He got his start at Bay­er as GM, Swe­den and Den­mark, and then pro­ceed­ed to GSK as their VP, com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment.

→ Buoyed by its $22 mil­lion Se­ries C round led by Boehringer In­gel­heim Ven­ture Fund, an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gate biotech NBE-Ther­a­peu­tics has a new CEO with Bertrand Damour now at the helm. His pre­de­ces­sor, founder Ulf Grawun­der, will slot him­self in­to the role of chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer and chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer. His last CEO gig was at Syn­thena AG, where he was al­so chair­man, and he’s al­so been the top man at Gene­Prot, Mind­NRG and On­coEthix.

Mag­gie Chen

→ Mag­gie Chen is on board as CFO of Suzhou, Chi­na-based CD­MO CMAB Bio­phar­ma, fo­cused on pre­clin­i­cal and PhI/II clin­i­cal prod­ucts. Be­fore mak­ing the leap to CMAB, Chen had been VP and CFO at Fo­s­un, and pri­or to that, she was al­so CFO at Por­ton Phar­ma So­lu­tions.

→ Deep­en­ing its part­ner­ship with Pfiz­er a month ago with a $15 mil­lion round, Cam­bridge biotech Mis­sion Ther­a­peu­tics has made changes in its lead­er­ship with the pro­mo­tions of Paul Thomp­son to CSO and Nick Ed­munds to chief tech­no­log­i­cal of­fi­cer. An 11-year GSK vet, Thomp­son makes the jump af­ter 2 years as Mis­sion’s VP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. Ed­munds came from As­traZeneca in 2016, where he had been head of new modal­i­ties, drug safe­ty and me­tab­o­lism, and moves on up from his pre­vi­ous role at Mis­sion as VP, head of DUB (deu­biq­ui­ty­lat­ing en­zymes) dis­cov­ery.

Fang Ni

→ With the dis­tinc­tion of land­ing the first IPO in 2020 — set­ting the ta­ble for the crazi­ness to come in the midst of the pan­dem­ic — on­col­o­gy play­er Black Di­a­mond Ther­a­peu­tics has brought back found­ing CBO Fang Ni to fill the same ca­pac­i­ty.  He had been a prin­ci­pal at Ver­sant Ven­tures and a mem­ber of the in­vest­ment team, serv­ing as in­ter­im CBO at Monte Rosa Ther­a­peu­tics and Bright Peak Ther­a­peu­tics dur­ing that pe­ri­od. He’s al­so a Roche vet who was more re­cent­ly the di­rec­tor, glob­al on­col­o­gy busi­ness de­vel­op­ment & li­cens­ing with­in the Big Phar­ma’s part­ner­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion.

Ken­neth Kobayashi

→ When last we left Aslan Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, they were fac­ing the same up­hill bat­tle of tri­al de­lays that have been so per­va­sive dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, paus­ing re­cruit­ment for their study of ASLAN004 in mod­er­ate to se­vere atopic der­mati­tis. Sin­ga­pore-based Aslan has named Ken­neth Kobayashi CMO to con­tin­ue de­vel­op­ment of that lead pro­gram. Kobayashi heads to Aslan from Eli Lil­ly sub­sidiary Der­mi­ra, where he was their se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor. Pri­or to that, he was No­var­tis’ clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment med­ical di­rec­tor in the im­munol­o­gy, he­pa­tol­ogy and der­ma­tol­ogy glob­al de­vel­op­ment unit.

→ WuXi Vac­cines — a joint ven­ture formed be­tween WuXi Bi­o­log­ics and Shang­hai-based Hile Bio-Tech­nol­o­gy — has snagged Jian Dong to helm the com­pa­ny as CEO. Dong hopped aboard WuXi Bi­o­log­ics in 2014 and pre­vi­ous­ly served in roles at Eli Lil­ly, Shang­hai Unit­ed Cell Biotech­nol­o­gy and Shen­zhen Kang­tai Bi­o­log­i­cal Prod­ucts.

Frank Zhang

→ Two months af­ter Yuan Xu steered Leg­end Biotech to a $424 mil­lion pub­lic de­but on the Nas­daq, founder and chair­man Frank Zhang is grab­bing the reins as CEO. In con­junc­tion with the move, Zhang is al­so step­ping down from the helm of Gen­Script — a po­si­tion he’s held for 18 years. Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease, Xu stepped down for “per­son­al rea­sons.”

→ Cure­Vac, one of the key play­ers in the race to de­vel­op a new mR­NA vac­cine to fight Covid-19 has reshuf­fled the top spots in the ex­ec­u­tive suite. And they’ve brought on Ig­or Splaws­ki, a No­var­tis vet out of Har­vard to spear­head their work on mR­NA as CSO. Splaws­ki played a big role at the No­var­tis In­sti­tutes for Bi­o­log­i­cal Re­search un­der Jay Brad­ner, where he was an ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor and site head. Like Brad­ner, Splaws­ki was al­so a pro­fes­sor at Har­vard, where he worked on hu­man ge­net­ic and mol­e­c­u­lar bi­ol­o­gy stud­ies. He wrapped a 3-year stint at Har­vard in 2008.

Alan Smith

→ Ear gene ther­a­py com­pa­ny Ak­ou­os has tapped Alan Smith as chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer. In ad­di­tion, the com­pa­ny an­nounced that Saira Ra­masas­try — who’s al­so a board mem­ber of Vir and Sang­amo — has been ap­point­ed to its board of di­rec­tors as au­dit com­mit­tee chair, and board mem­ber Arthur Tzian­a­bos, the cur­rent CEO and pres­i­dent of Ho­mol­o­gy Med­i­cines, has been ap­point­ed chair­man of the board. Smith pre­vi­ous­ly served as EVP, tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions at Bel­licum Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and has held ex­ec roles at Cog­nate Bioser­vices and Osiris Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ With a par­tic­u­lar fo­cus on di­a­bet­ic mac­u­lar ede­ma, Bel­gian bio­phar­ma Ox­u­ri­on NV has turned to Grace Chang to be their CMO. Cur­rent­ly an ad­junct clin­i­cal as­so­ciate pro­fes­sor in the oph­thal­mol­o­gy de­part­ment at USC’s Keck School of Med­i­cine, Chang used to be CMO at No­tal Vi­sion. She al­so led glob­al clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at for­mer No­var­tis sub­sidiary Al­con Lab­o­ra­to­ries.

Robert Zeldin

→ Part­ner­ing with J&J on their gene ther­a­py for x-linked re­tini­tis pig­men­tosa — and re­leas­ing promis­ing Phase I/II da­ta last month — MeiraGTx has snagged Robert Zeldin as CMO. Zeldin, a Mer­ck and No­var­tis vet, has pre­vi­ous­ly been CMO at sev­er­al biotechs in the last 5 years: Im­muno­vant, Ac­celeron and Abl­ynx.

→ GSK and Dai­ichi Sankyo vet Juan Car­los Jaramil­lo is mov­ing on to French vac­cine com­pa­ny Val­ne­va to take the CMO job, ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 1. His pre­de­ces­sor, Wolf­gang Ben­der, is re­tir­ing at the end of Oc­to­ber. Jaramil­lo had been with Dai­ichi Sankyo for 7 years, most re­cent­ly as SVP, head of glob­al mar­ket ac­cess & pric­ing. While at GSK, he was the act­ing head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and med­ical af­fairs vac­cines, Eu­rope.

→ Se­lec­ta Bio­sciences, which struck a li­cens­ing agree­ment in June to open up its im­mune tol­er­ance plat­form Imm­TOR to Sarep­ta, has re­cruit­ed Pe­ter Tra­ber as CMO. Tra­ber has helmed Galectin Ther­a­peu­tics as pres­i­dent and CEO, and has al­so spent time as their CMO in the crowd­ed but be­lea­guered NASH field. He was for­mer­ly CMO and SVP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment & med­ical af­fairs with GSK and the pres­i­dent and CEO of the Bay­lor Col­lege of Med­i­cine.

Su­san­na High

→ Su­san­na High has been named chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer at Waltham, MA mus­cle dis­ease biotech Dyne Ther­a­peu­tics. She hails from blue­bird bio, where she filled the same role and guid­ed the ap­proval of Zyn­te­glo for trans­fu­sion-de­pen­dent be­ta tha­lassemia. High al­so held a num­ber of po­si­tions at Al­ny­lam, in­clud­ing SVP, strat­e­gy & busi­ness in­te­gra­tion, be­fore she left for blue­bird.

→ Backed by Mer­ck and Am­gen, Durham, NC-based RNA mod­u­la­tion biotech Ri­bometrix has tapped Bar­clay “Buck” Phillips as COO and CFO. Phillips is stay­ing in the Re­search Tri­an­gle area af­ter a stint at G1 Ther­a­peu­tics as their CFO, SVP of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment. He’s al­so led fi­nan­cial op­er­a­tions at No­vavax as SVP, CFO and trea­sur­er from 2013-17.

Enoch Kar­iu­ki

→ Fo­cused on re­cep­tor ty­ro­sine ki­nase-like or­phan re­cep­tor 1 (ROR) and chalk­ing up a $137 mil­lion Se­ries B round in Ju­ly, San Diego-based Velos­Bio has en­list­ed Enoch Kar­iu­ki to be their CFO. Kar­iu­ki skips over from an­oth­er San Diego biotech, Syn­thorx, where he was their SVP, cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment. Pri­or to Syn­thorx, he was VP at H.I.G. Bio­Health Part­ners, the ded­i­cat­ed health­care in­vest­ment af­fil­i­ate of H.I.G. Cap­i­tal.

→ Stay­ing in San Diego, Kei­th Mar­shall has been ap­point­ed CFO of IBD-fo­cused Prometheus Bio­sciences. Mar­shall hails from Cona­tus Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, where he had been EVP, COO and CFO the last 3 years. Be­fore that, he was CFO and head of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment at Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing com­pa­ny Torque Ther­a­peu­tics (which merged with Co­gen Im­mune Med­i­cine to be­come Reper­toire Im­mune Med­i­cines).

→ More changes at San Diego biotechs abound as De­nis Dry­gin has signed on as CSO of mi­croR­NA play­er Reg­u­lus Ther­a­peu­tics, which forked over its lead drug to Sanofi in No­vem­ber 2018 af­ter sig­nif­i­cant down­siz­ing. Dry­gin co-found­ed and was VP of R&D at Pimera the last 7 years, and be­fore that, he spent 8 years at Cy­lene Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals in nu­mer­ous posts, leav­ing in 2013 as VP, bi­ol­o­gy.

Nush­mia Khokhar

→ Nush­mia Khokhar has been pro­mot­ed to SVP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Lon­don-based T cell pro­gram­ming bio­phar­ma Au­to­lus. Vi­jay Red­dy has al­so an­nounced he’s leav­ing Au­to­lus as CMO and re­turn­ing to the US. Khokhar was pre­vi­ous­ly the glob­al clin­i­cal leader for the dara­tu­mum­ab (Darza­lex) pro­gram at Janssen be­fore join­ing Au­to­lus as VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment in 2017. Al­so, Ac­celeron R&D chief Jay Back­strom has been elect­ed to Au­to­lus’ board of di­rec­tors.

→ Genome edit­ing vet TJ Cradick has been hand­ed the keys to the CSO car at CRISPR biotech Ex­ci­sion Bio­Ther­a­peu­tics. Cradick was head of genome edit­ing for more than 4 years at CRISPR Ther­a­peu­tics, and ear­ly in his ca­reer, he was a sci­en­tist in the zinc fin­ger nu­cle­ase de­sign & se­lec­tion group at Sang­amo.

→ Evo­lu­tion Re­search Group, a New Jer­sey-based net­work of clin­i­cal re­search sites, has cho­sen William Mar­tin to be CSO af­ter a near­ly 9-year run at Alk­er­mes in roles of in­creas­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, capped by his year-long tenure as se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment & med­ical af­fairs. He al­so spent time at Pfiz­er as as­so­ciate di­rec­tor, clin­i­cal re­search and pre­ci­sion med­i­cine.

James Craven

→ There are a few per­son­nel changes at CN Bio, a bio­engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny out of the UK fo­cused on sin­gle and mul­ti-or­gan mi­cro­phys­i­o­log­i­cal sys­tems (MPS). James Craven, CN Bio’s new chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer, comes from Brooks Life Sci­ences, where he head­ed their mar­ket strat­e­gy and com­mer­cial de­liv­ery. Pfiz­er and Gen­Script vet Bri­an Man­ning is now the US head of sales af­ter be­ing se­nior di­rec­tor of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at In­Sphero. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Sarah Payne has been brought on as prod­uct mar­ket­ing man­ag­er.

→ With teplizum­ab gath­er­ing re­newed mo­men­tum thanks to sol­id June da­ta as a BLA awaits, Ash­leigh Palmer’s Proven­tion Bio has giv­en the new­ly-cre­at­ed role of chief le­gal of­fi­cer to Hei­dy Abreu King-Jones. She leaves Ax­cel­la, where she was SVP, gen­er­al coun­sel and cor­po­rate sec­re­tary. From 2013-18, King-Jones al­so filled sev­er­al po­si­tions in the le­gal de­part­ment at Sarep­ta.

Lance Ku­ra­ta

→ Speak­ing of le­gal ap­point­ments, Lance Ku­ra­ta has joined San Diego mR­NA play­er Arc­turus as chief le­gal of­fi­cer. Ku­ra­ta had pre­vi­ous­ly been a part­ner in the cor­po­rate group and mem­ber of the life sci­ences prac­tice group at Mintz.

→ AAV gene ther­a­py com­pa­ny AskBio has named Michael Kran­da as SVP, ther­a­peu­tic prac­tice leader. Pri­or to his new role, Kran­da served as se­nior di­rec­tor of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at the Allen In­sti­tute. In ad­di­tion, Kran­da has held di­rec­tor roles at Im­munex (now Am­gen) and PTC Ther­a­peu­tics among oth­ers.

→ Jim Green­wood has be­come a se­nior ad­vi­sor at DLA Piper and will chair their Life Sci­ences, Health, Pol­i­cy and Reg­u­la­to­ry sub­group that was just cre­at­ed. Green­wood re­cent­ly com­plet­ed his 15-year tenure at the helm of BIO.

Cas­san­dra Mat­ney

→ CRO Pre­mier Re­search has wooed Cas­san­dra Mat­ney as se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor. Pri­or to hop­ping aboard the com­pa­ny, Mat­ney held po­si­tions at Astel­las, Janssen, In­cyte and Co­v­ance.

→ Lund­beck vet Mads Kro­n­berg has joined Dan­ish pep­tide-based med­i­cine biotech Zealand Phar­ma as their head of in­vestor re­la­tions & com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Be­fore mak­ing the jump to Zealand, Kro­n­berg spent more than 12 years at Lund­beck, work­ing his way up to se­nior di­rec­tor, head of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

→ A cou­ple months re­moved from the ap­point­ment of Ja­son O’Neill as CEO, im­munother­a­py-fo­cused Den­dreon has brought in Dar­lene Romine to be SVP of sales and mar­ket ac­cess as well as a mem­ber of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee. Romine has pre­vi­ous­ly held sim­i­lar posts at J&J, Bio­gen and Mallinck­rodt.

Jonathan Yu

→ Tar­get­ing hema­to­log­ic dis­eases, Disc Med­i­cine is giv­ing its staff a boost with Jonathan Yu com­ing in as SVP of cor­po­rate strat­e­gy and William Sav­age as VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment to help ad­vance their hep­cidin path­way mod­u­la­tor pipeline to­ward the clin­ic. Yu co-found­ed and was VP of cor­po­rate strat­e­gy, fi­nance and op­er­a­tions for Qpex Bio­phar­ma, while Sav­age, a Shire/Take­da vet, was se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor at Ma­gen­ta Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ Ellen For­est has got­ten the call to be chief hu­man re­sources of­fi­cer at Yu­man­i­ty Ther­a­peu­tics, which tar­gets neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases. Pri­or to Cam­bridge, MA-based Yu­man­i­ty, For­est was SVP and head of hu­man cap­i­tal for Co­gen Im­mune Med­i­cine and VP, head of hu­man re­sources for Mer­ri­mack Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ On­col­o­gy and in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­ease-fo­cused bio­phar­ma RAPT Ther­a­peu­tics has called up­on Phyl­lis Loud Gray to be VP of hu­man re­sources. Gray moves on from Sune­sis Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, where she was their se­nior di­rec­tor and head of hu­man re­sources.

→ Co-found­ed by Bob Langer and rais­ing $56 mil­lion in their May IPO, ENT-fo­cused Lyra Ther­a­peu­tics is bring­ing in Pamela Nel­son as SVP of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs. Nel­son, held the VP of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs post at Ave­dro pri­or to Lyra, start­ed her reg­u­la­to­ry ca­reer at Gen­zyme and Alk­er­mes.

Rich Hey­man

→ Less than a year af­ter pulling in an im­pres­sive $62 mil­lion Se­ries C round, PMV Phar­ma has named Rich Hey­man as chair­man of its board. Hey­man joins right as the Cran­bury, NJ-based com­pa­ny brought in $70 mil­lion from a Se­ries D fi­nanc­ing round. Hey­man comes to PMV af­ter found­ing the biotechs Aragon (ac­quired by J&J) and Ser­agon (ac­quired by Roche and Genen­tech), each of which sold for more than $1 bil­lion in the span of 12 months back in 2013 and 2014.

→ Ex-Pur­due CEO Mark Tim­ney has been named chair­man of the board at fi­bro­sis-fo­cused Blade Ther­a­peu­tics, suc­ceed­ing Luke Evnin, who was chair­man since its 2015 found­ing. Tim­ney al­so helmed and was a board mem­ber at The Med­i­cines Com­pa­ny.

Ted Love

→ Pablo Legor­re­ta’s Roy­al­ty Phar­ma, which made waves with its prodi­gious $2.2 bil­lion IPO in June, has added to its board of di­rec­tors with Glob­al Blood Ther­a­peu­tics pres­i­dent CEO Ted Love. MSCI chair­man and CEO Hen­ry Fer­nan­dez is al­so join­ing the board.

→ Buf­fa­lo-based Athenex has elect­ed Robert Spiegel to its board of di­rec­tors. Spiegel has held the CMO job at PTC Ther­a­peu­tics and Sch­ler­ing-Plough.

→ J&J vet Chris Ha­lyk is now on the board of di­rec­tors MediPharm Labs out of Toron­to. Ha­lyk spent 33 years at the phar­ma gi­ant un­til 2019, when he was pres­i­dent of Janssen (Cana­da).