Sanofi vet Kather­ine Bowdish named CEO of PIC Ther­a­peu­tics; As the world Terns: Liv­er dis­ease biotech makes ex­ec­u­tive changes

Kather­ine Bowdish

PIC Ther­a­peu­tics hasn’t raised much mon­ey, yet. But the fledg­ling biotech has at­tract­ed a high-pro­file play­er to the helm.

The Boston-based biotech has hand­ed the reins to Kather­ine Bowdish as its pres­i­dent and CEO. Bowdish will al­so join the board of di­rec­tors of PIC. Bowdish joins from Sanofi where she served as VP and head of R&D strat­e­gy, as well as help­ing launch and lead Sanofi Sun­rise, a ven­ture in­vest­ment and part­ner­ing ve­hi­cle at Sanofi. Be­fore that, Bowdish held sev­er­al ex­ec roles at Per­me­on Bi­o­log­ics, Anaphore, Alex­ion Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Pro­li­faron (ac­quired by Alex­ion).

PIC, in its own words, is fo­cused on trans­form­ing the treat­ment of can­cer through the se­lec­tive mod­u­la­tion of onco­gene trans­la­tion, which you can think more broad­ly about as con­trol­ling the ex­pres­sion of large banks of genes at a time in or­der to si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly mod­u­late mul­ti­ple onco­genic dri­vers — a very am­bi­tious goal for a com­pa­ny that just raised a $5 mil­lion seed round.

Back in April Ad­vent Life Sci­ences led the launch round, with Be­lin­da Ter­meer, wid­ow of leg­endary Gen­zyme CEO Hen­ri Ter­meer, as well as “sev­er­al bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try ex­ec­u­tives and oth­er in­di­vid­ual in­vestors” chip­ping in. We’re like­ly to hear more on that score in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture.

Senthil Sun­daram

→ The C-suite has shuf­fled con­sid­er­ably at liv­er dis­ease-fo­cused Terns Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals out of Fos­ter City, CA. Senthil Sun­daram now as­sumes the CEO post, re­plac­ing Wei­dong Zhong, who was at the helm since Terns was found­ed and is now mov­ing in­to two new roles: CSO and chair­man of the board. Sun­daram makes his way to Terns af­ter 2 years as CFO of Night­star Ther­a­peu­tics, which would lat­er be ac­quired by Bio­gen. He was al­so VP and head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at NASH play­er In­ter­cept af­ter 13 years in in­vest­ment bank­ing.

Else­where at Terns, Erin Quirk has added pres­i­dent to her CMO ti­tle and Mark Vi­g­no­la is their new CFO. A for­mer clin­i­cal re­search ex­ec at Gilead and Mer­ck, Quirk has been CMO since Jan­u­ary 2019. Vi­g­no­la comes to Terns from his CFO gig at Ap­plied Ther­a­peu­tics and, like Sun­daram, was an ex­ec at In­ter­cept.

→ There’s a change at the top at Is­raeli-based En­tera Bio, which fo­cus­es on oral­ly-de­liv­ered macro­mol­e­cule ther­a­pies, with Sanofi vet Roger Garceau get­ting the call as in­ter­im CEO af­ter Adam Gri­d­ley re­signed “to pur­sue an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty.” Garceau, En­tera’s chief de­vel­op­ment ad­vi­sor since De­cem­ber 2016, will al­so con­tin­ue as a di­rec­tor. Pri­or to join­ing the board at En­tera in March 2016, he was CMO and EVP of R&D at NPS Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Garceau filled sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive roles at Sanofi, in­clud­ing VP of US new prod­uct mar­ket­ing.

Chris­t­ian Hen­ry

→ Men­lo Park, CA gene se­quenc­ing com­pa­ny Pa­cif­ic Bio­sciences, which Il­lu­mi­na at­tempt­ed to buy out un­til the deal fiz­zled at the start of this year, has cho­sen Chris­t­ian Hen­ry to lead the way as pres­i­dent and CEO, ef­fec­tive next month. Michael Hunkapiller, who an­nounced his re­tire­ment in June, has been at the helm since 2012 and will be­come a se­nior fel­low fo­cused on tech­nol­o­gy de­vel­op­ment once Hen­ry takes over. Hen­ry has been on PacBio’s board of di­rec­tors since 2018 and board mem­ber John Mil­li­gan will suc­ceed him as chair­man of the board, where Hen­ry had served since March. Hen­ry spent 12 years at Il­lu­mi­na and was both their CCO and CFO at sep­a­rate junc­tures.

In oth­er PacBio news, Su­san Barnes has re­tired from her CFO post, as Ben Gong has been named to re­place her on an in­ter­im ba­sis. Gong has been at PacBio for the past decade as their VP, fi­nance and trea­sur­er.

Janet Ham­mond

Janet Ham­mond has been in­stalled in the new­ly-cre­at­ed po­si­tion of chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer at Jean-Pierre Som­ma­dos­si’s vi­ral dis­ease com­pa­ny Atea Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, which threw their hats in the Covid-19 ring and scored a $215 mil­lion fi­nanc­ing round in May. An ex-SVP at Roche, Ham­mond comes over from Ab­b­Vie, where she was their VP, in­fec­tious dis­eases and gen­er­al med­i­cine. She’s al­so been CMO, SVP and head of med­ical af­fairs at Valeant Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ Nor­we­gian hema­tol­ogy and on­col­o­gy play­er Nordic Nanovec­tor has se­cured Chris­tine Wilkin­son Blanc as their CMO a few months af­ter sev­er­al oth­er ex­ec­u­tive changes. Wilkin­son Blanc, who got her start at Roche as a clin­i­cal re­search physi­cian, had been med­ical di­rec­tor of PhiMedics for the last decade and, from 2013-16, was CMO of Psioxus Ther­a­peu­tics.

Punit Dhillon

→ Fo­cused on cannabi­noid-based ther­a­pies, Cal­i­for­nia-based Emer­ald Bio­science has changed CEOs, vault­ing for­mer On­coSec CEO Punit Dhillon to the top spot af­ter Bri­an Mur­phy re­signed both as CEO and a board mem­ber. Dhillon, who al­so co-found­ed On­coSec in 2011, had been Emer­ald’s chair­man and is their found­ing di­rec­tor. Be­fore his time at On­coSec, he was In­ovio’s VP of fi­nance and op­er­a­tions.

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with Roche on im­muno-on­col­o­gy ther­a­pies, with mile­stones po­ten­tial­ly to the tune of $1.7 bil­lion, Bi­cy­cle Ther­a­peu­tics has steered to­ward a new CMO with Do­minic Smethurst, who has his share of ex­pe­ri­ence in the same po­si­tion at sev­er­al oth­er biotechs. Smethurst heads to UK-based Bi­cy­cle af­ter a few months as in­ter­im CMO at Nordic Nanovec­tor. He briefly held the CMO post at BerGen­Bio, and be­fore that, had a 2-year tenure as CMO at Tusk Ther­a­peu­tics.

Gal­lia Levy

→ As not­ed ear­li­er in the week, Gal­lia Levy has left her post at Genen­tech to be­come CMO of Roche sub­sidiary Spark Ther­a­peu­tics, whose he­mo­phil­ia A gene ther­a­py SPK-8011 is one of four pro­grams in clin­i­cal tri­als. Levy led glob­al de­vel­op­ment on Hem­li­bra for he­mo­phil­ia A, and was al­so Genen­tech’s VP, prod­uct de­vel­op­ment and glob­al head of the rare blood dis­or­ders fran­chise.

Adri­an Hep­n­er has been tapped as CMO of Pharnext, a French drug de­vel­op­er fo­cused on neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases us­ing ge­nomics da­ta and AI. Be­fore head­ing to Pharnext, Hep­n­er was EVP and CMO of Ea­gle Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals from 2015-20, had a short stint at UCB at their se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor, and spent 6 years as a clin­i­cal re­search ex­ec at Avanir Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Wilco Groen­huy­sen

→ UK-based on­col­o­gy play­er Novo­cure, which re­ceived an FDA OK in May 2019 with its NovoT­TF-100L Sys­tem for ma­lig­nant pleur­al mesothe­lioma, has an­nounced a hand­ful of per­son­nel moves, ef­fec­tive Sept 1. Wilco Groen­huy­sen is tran­si­tion­ing to COO af­ter 8 years as Novo­cure’s CFO, and as a re­sult, Ash­ley Cor­do­va has been pro­mot­ed from SVP, fi­nance and in­vestor re­la­tions to the CFO post. Frank Leonard has al­so been pro­mot­ed to the new­ly-cre­at­ed chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer po­si­tion, as the 10-year Novo­cure vet moves on up from his pre­vi­ous role as their SVP, cor­po­rate strat­e­gy and health pol­i­cy.

→ AAV-based gene ther­a­py com­pa­ny Stride­Bio, part­ner­ing with Sarep­ta on four cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem tar­gets, has brought on William Mon­tei­th to be their COO. A pre-Pfiz­er deal Wyeth Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals vet and a Den­dreon ex­ec from 2009-15, Mon­tei­th heads over to Stride­Bio from Cel­lec­tis, where he spent the last year as EVP, tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions.

→ Psy­che­del­ic-in­spired med­i­cine de­vel­op­er MindMed is ex­pand­ing its Eu­ro­pean hori­zons and has cho­sen Miri Halperin Wern­li to lead the clin­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic team in Eu­rope as pres­i­dent. Halperin Wern­li, the co-founder of Aus­tralian med­ical cannabis com­pa­ny Cre­so Phar­ma, is an Acte­lion vet who was their VP, deputy head of glob­al clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and glob­al head, busi­ness & sci­ence af­fairs.

Ellen Lub­man

Ellen Lub­man is on board as CBO of Long­wood-backed Cam­bridge, MA on­col­o­gy play­er Were­wolf Ther­a­peu­tics, which launched in No­vem­ber with a $56 mil­lion Se­ries A round. A Bris­tol My­ers Squibb vet well versed in M&A, Lub­man leaves her CBO post at Im­pel Neu­roPhar­ma, a role she filled for near­ly 2 years. Be­fore that, she was at Al­ler­gan from 2014-18 as their VP, ex­ter­nal sci­ence and in­no­va­tion.

→ On the rec­om­men­da­tion of prin­ci­pal in­ves­ti­ga­tor Manuel Hi­dal­go, La­gu­na Hills, CA-based Phar­ma­Cyte has brought in José Igle­sias as a con­sult­ing CMO for a Phase IIb clin­i­cal tri­al in lo­cal­ly ad­vanced, in­op­er­a­ble pan­cre­at­ic can­cer (LAPC). Igle­sias, who helped de­vel­op Abrax­ane while he was with Abrax­is and Cel­gene, is the cur­rent CMO at Sen­ti Bio­sciences.

Roger Sawh­ney

Flag­ship biotech Omega Ther­a­peu­tics, which hauled in $85 mil­lion a cou­ple weeks ago with its am­bi­tion to cre­ate an epi­ge­net­ic pro­gram­ming plat­form for what CEO Ma­hesh Karande calls the “con­trol room of hu­man bi­ol­o­gy,” has snagged Roger Sawh­ney as CFO. A for­mer SVP and head of glob­al cor­po­rate strat­e­gy at No­var­tis, Sawh­ney was most re­cent­ly di­rec­tor of KKR and Co’s health­care in­vest­ment team in the Amer­i­c­as.

→ Try­ing to dig out from the mess of their con­tro­ver­sy over busi­ness prac­tices, Ma­ri­et­ta, GA-based wound care com­pa­ny MiMedX has ap­point­ed Robert Stein their EVP of R&D. Stein’s work in the area of R&D goes back 30 years when he was SVP of R&D and CSO of Lig­and Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and lat­er at DuPont-Mer­ck Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. The ex-pres­i­dent and CSO of In­cyte and the ex-CEO at KineMed, Stein’s most re­cent ex­ec­u­tive gig in R&D was at Agenus.

Jeff Aronin’s Paragon Bio­sciences has tapped Keren­sa Jimenez as the new CEO of the com­pa­ny’s cap­i­tal mar­kets group, Paragon Health. Jimenez hops aboard the com­pa­ny from Oc­ta­gon Cap­i­tal Group, where she served as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor. In ad­di­tion, she’s was a di­rec­tor at Far­lie Turn­er.

Michael Levitz has as­sumed the CFO role at Bed­ford, MA or­tho­pe­dic med­i­cines biotech Ani­ka Ther­a­peu­tics. Pri­or to his ar­rival at Ani­ka, Levitz, who got his start at Arthur An­der­sen, had been SVP, CFO and trea­sur­er of two oth­er com­pa­nies: In­sulet Cor­po­ra­tion and Ana­log­ic Cor­po­ra­tion.

Az­iz Mot­ti­wala

→ Af­ter nam­ing Se­sha Neer­van­nan and Leo Green­stein last month to the COO and CFO posts, re­spec­tive­ly, Irvine, CA-based Tar­sus Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has fur­ther re­tooled its ex­ec­u­tive team with Az­iz Mot­ti­wala step­ping in as chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer. Be­fore join­ing Tar­sus, whose lead drug TP-03 tar­gets the eye dis­ease De­mod­ex ble­phar­i­tis, Mot­ti­wala held the same role at Opi­ant Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and be­fore that was SVP and head of com­mer­cial at Avanir Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. He al­so spent more than a decade in nu­mer­ous po­si­tions at Al­ler­gan, leav­ing as their VP, US eye care mar­ket­ing.

Neil Bell has been se­lect­ed as chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer at Avac­ta Life Sci­ences out of the UK. Bell start­ed out at Ei­sai and Pfiz­er be­fore as­sum­ing the role of ther­a­peu­tic area head for gas­troen­terol­o­gy and neu­rol­o­gy at Ipsen. Since then, he has led clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions at Te­va Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Dai­ichi Sankyo and, most re­cent­ly, Au­to­lus.

Kevin Heller has signed on as EVP of R&D of Jasper Ther­a­peu­tics, which launched out of Stan­ford in De­cem­ber with a $50 mil­lion Se­ries A and is fo­cused on hematopoi­et­ic cell trans­plant ther­a­pies. Heller had pre­vi­ous­ly held the CMO post at NextCure and was al­so VP, head of an­ti­body clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for In­cyte. He’s al­so a Big Phar­ma vet, fill­ing on­col­o­gy roles at Bris­tol My­ers Squibb and As­traZeneca.

Man­asi Sin­ha Jaiman

→ Long­time stem cell play­er Vi­a­Cyte has snagged Man­asi Sin­ha Jaiman as VP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. Jaiman jumps from Co­v­ance Clin­i­cal De­vel­op­ment Ser­vices, where she served as se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor. She was al­so an at­tend­ing physi­cian at Har­vard Med­ical School and Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

→ Matthew Metivi­er has hopped aboard Is­raeli biotech Gami­da Cell as VP, hu­man re­sources. Metivi­er hails from Sage Ther­a­peu­tics, where he served in the same role. Pri­or to that, he held roles at In­fin­i­ty Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Idenix Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals (ac­quired by Mer­ck & Co).

→ Basel, Switzer­land biotech NBE-Ther­a­peu­tics just grabbed a new CEO in Bertrand Damour, and now Erich Schlick has been elect­ed chair­man of the board. Schlick is cur­rent­ly a gen­er­al part­ner and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor at Mu­nich VC Welling­ton Part­ners.

Suzanne Hoop­er

→ Bridge­Bio sub­sidiary Ei­dos Ther­a­peu­tics, which was near­ly re­claimed by Bridge­Bio un­til di­rec­tors spurned three of­fershas ap­point­ed Suzanne Sawochka Hoop­er and Duke Rohlen as in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tors to its board. Hoop­er is a for­mer EVP and gen­er­al coun­sel of Jazz Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, while Rohlen is CEO and man­ag­ing part­ner of Ajax Health.

→ Led by Kel­ly Mar­tin, Waltham, MA-based Ra­dius Health has giv­en Sean Mur­phy a spot on their board of di­rec­tors. Cur­rent­ly a board mem­ber at Po­sei­da Ther­a­peu­tics and Xenex Cor­po­ra­tion, Mur­phy was in cor­po­rate busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and M&A for more than 30 years at Ab­bott Lab­o­ra­to­ries.

John Jenk­ins

John Jenk­ins is now on the board of di­rec­tors at Proven­tion Bio. The cur­rent prin­ci­pal for drug and bi­o­log­i­cal prod­ucts at Green­leaf Health, the long­time FDA vet was di­rec­tor of the Of­fice of New Drugs at CDER from 2002-17.

Karuna Ther­a­peu­tics, fo­cused on neu­ropsy­chi­atric dis­or­ders, has wel­comed Lau­rie Ol­son to their board of di­rec­tors. A long­time Pfiz­er ex­ec, Ol­son was their EVP, strat­e­gy and com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions from 2012-18.

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Clay Siegall, Morphimmune CEO

Up­dat­ed: Ex-Seagen chief Clay Sie­gall emerges as CEO of pri­vate biotech

Clay Siegall will be back in the CEO seat, taking the helm of a private startup working on targeted cancer therapies.

It’s been almost a year since Siegall resigned from Seagen, the biotech he co-founded and led for more than 20 years, in the wake of domestic violence allegations by his then-wife. His eventual successor, David Epstein, sold the company to Pfizer in a $43 billion deal unveiled last week.

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Zhi Hong, Brii Biosciences CEO

Brii Bio­sciences stops man­u­fac­tur­ing Covid-19 an­ti­body com­bo, plans to with­draw EUA re­quest

Brii Biosciences said it will stop manufacturing its Covid-19 antibody combination, sold in China, and is working to withdraw its emergency use authorization request in the US, which it started in October 2021.

The Beijing and North Carolina biotech commercially launched the treatment in China last July but is now axing the work and reverting resources to other “high-priority programs,” per a Friday update. The focus now is namely hepatitis B viral infection, postpartum depression and major depressive disorders.

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Three­'s a crowd as an­oth­er Kite ex­ec hits the ex­it; Surf­ing tough wa­ters, Celyad On­col­o­gy picks up new CEO

Kite Pharma is losing another exec, as Francesco Marincola leaves his post to join Flagship startup Sonata Therapeutics as CSO. Marincola served as Kite’s SVP and global head of cell therapy research, having joined the company in 2021 after a stint as CSO at Refuge Biotechnologies. Marincola has also served as a distinguished research fellow at AbbVie and spent more than two decades at the NIH and NCI. Marincola’s exit from Kite marks the third, following CEO Christi Shaw and Tecartus global program clinical lead Behzad Kharabi, who both left last month.

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Sergio Traversa, Relmada Therapeutics CEO

Rel­ma­da makes 'crit­i­cal changes' to PhI­II tri­al to try and save de­pres­sion drug

Relmada Therapeutics is making changes to its Phase III study of its lead drug for major depressive disorder, in an attempt to avoid problems with a prior trial that showed little difference between the drug and a placebo.

That failure in October wiped 80% from Relmada’s stock price, and was followed by another negative readout a few months later. In both cases, the company said that there had been trial sites that were associated with what it called surprising placebo effects that skewed the results compared with the drug, REL-1017.

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Paul Song, NKGen Biotech CEO

NK cell ther­a­py-fo­cused biotech eyes SPAC deal

A small, Santa Ana-based biotech created in 2017 is looking to enter a SPAC deal as it lays out plans to begin trials in its lead cell therapy candidates and bring on new executives.

Graf Acquisition Corp. IV and NKGen Biotech announced Thursday, with few other details, that the two companies signed a non-binding letter of intent to “pursue a business combination.” Graf Acquisition II and III withdrew their IPOs last year.

In­cyte hit by CRL on ex­tend­ed-re­lease JAK tablets, mud­dy­ing plans for Jakafi fran­chise ex­pan­sion

The FDA has rejected Incyte’s extended-release formulation of ruxolitinib tablets, in a surprise setback for the company’s plans to build on its blockbuster Jakafi franchise.

The ruxolitinib XR tablets are designed to be taken once a day, whereas Jakafi is indicated for twice daily dosage (although some patients can take it once daily).

According to Incyte, the FDA acknowledged in its complete response letter that the study submitted in the NDA “met its objective of bioequivalence based on area under the curve (AUC) parameters but identified additional requirements for approval.”

Peter Hecht, Cyclerion Therapeutics CEO

Hard pressed for cash, Cy­cle­ri­on looks for help fund­ing rare dis­ease drug

Cyclerion Therapeutics may have the design of a Phase IIb study ready to go, but it’s scrambling for a way to fund it.

The company said in a press release that it’s “actively evaluating the best combination of capital, capabilities, and transactions available to it to advance the development of zagociguat,” its lead candidate for a rare, genetic mitochondrial disease known as MELAS.

In a separate SEC filing, Cyclerion once again flagged “substantial doubt about (its) ability to continue as a going concern.” As of the end of 2022, it had cash and cash equivalents of only $13.4 million.

FDA ad­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for Bio­gen's ALS drug

A panel of outside advisors to the FDA unanimously recommended that the agency grant accelerated approval to Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen despite the drug failing the primary goal of its Phase III study, an endorsement that could pave a path forward for the treatment.

By a 9-0 vote, members of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee said there was sufficient evidence that tofersen’s effect on a certain protein associated with ALS is reasonably likely to predict a benefit for patients. But panelists stopped short of advocating for a full approval, voting 3-5 against (with one abstention) and largely citing the failed pivotal study.

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