Jean-Michel Boers

→ Jean-Michel Boers, who joined Boehringer In­gel­heim in 1998, is step­ping in as US pres­i­dent and CEO. He suc­ceeds Wolf­gang Baik­er, who is re­tir­ing af­ter 31 years with the com­pa­ny. Af­ter start­ing out at Boehringer In­gel­heim 22 years ago in Bel­gium as head of busi­ness in­for­ma­tion and sup­port, Boers has steadi­ly worked his way up the lad­der in more promi­nent lead­er­ship roles. He has led the US hu­man phar­ma busi­ness at the Ger­man drug­mak­er since Jan­u­ary 2017.

Baik­er took over from Paul Fonteyne in 2018 and pri­or to that had been Boehringer In­gel­heim’s SVP and the head of the bio­phar­ma busi­ness unit. His re­tire­ment is ef­fec­tive Ju­ly 31.

→ Vaxart, which was on the ini­tial 18-name short­list for Op­er­a­tion Warp Speed, is chang­ing CEOs as the South San Fran­cis­co biotech looks to pick up the pace on their oral tablet Covid-19 vac­cine can­di­date. An­drei Floroiu grabs hold of the reins, suc­ceed­ing Wouter La­tour, who had been CEO since 2011. La­tour will stay on as chair­man of the board. Be­fore tak­ing over at Vaxart, Floroiu was an ex­ec at Agenus and man­ag­ing di­rec­tor at Ex­i­go Cap­i­tal.

Lau­rent Fis­ch­er

→ Gene ther­a­py play­er Ad­verum, which re­cent­ly re­port­ed pos­i­tive in­ter­im da­ta for its Phase I tri­al, has brought on Lau­rent Fis­ch­er as CEO. Leone Pat­ter­son, who has served as CEO for four years, will be hand­ing the reins over and con­tin­ue serv­ing as the com­pa­ny’s pres­i­dent. Most re­cent­ly, Fis­ch­er served as SVP and head of the liv­er ther­a­peu­tic area at Al­ler­gan. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he served as chair­man and CEO of To­bi­ra Ther­a­peu­tics (ac­quired by Al­ler­gan in 2016) and has served in lead­er­ship roles at Jen­nerex, Aux­eris Ther­a­peu­tics and Ocera Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ Ex-Cel­gene CEO Bob Hug­in has added an­oth­er board ap­point­ment to his ré­sumé. Hug­in has joined Yale spin­out Bio­haven‘s board of di­rec­tors. Hug­in left Cel­gene in 2018 amongst ru­mors of him run­ning for Sen­ate in New Jer­sey. Hug­in jumped back in­to the in­dus­try in 2019, af­ter an un­suc­cess­ful run for Sen­ate, join­ing em­bat­tled Al­ler­gan‘s board of di­rec­tors.

→ Stéphane Ban­cel con­tin­ues to shore up the lead­er­ship team at Mod­er­na as the biotech jock­eys for po­si­tion on their Covid-19 vac­cine. Not long af­ter David Meline joined Mod­er­na as CFO, fel­low Am­gen vet Ray Jor­dan has as­sumed the role of chief cor­po­rate af­fairs of­fi­cer. From 2012-19, Jor­dan was Am­gen’s SVP, cor­po­rate af­fairs. The Big Phar­ma ex­pe­ri­ence is ex­ten­sive for Jor­dan, hav­ing been at J&J for 9 years and spent 17 years at Pfiz­er, round­ing out his tenure there as VP, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and in­for­ma­tion.

Fil­ip Dubovsky

→ Re­ceiv­ing $200 mil­lion worth of back­ing from RA Cap­i­tal this week for their Covid-19 vac­cine can­di­date, No­vavax is boost­ing its ex­ec­u­tive team by en­list­ing As­traZeneca vet Fil­ip Dubovsky as SVP and CMO, and Sil­via Tay­lor as SVP, in­vestor re­la­tions and cor­po­rate af­fairs. Dubovsky was As­traZeneca’s head of clin­i­cal en­gage­ment and pol­i­cy and deputy CMO for clin­i­cal af­fairs be­fore jump­ing to No­vavax. Tay­lor left Au­to­lus as VP of glob­al cor­po­rate af­fairs and com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Sil­via Tay­lor

No­vavax has al­so added David Mott to their board of di­rec­tors. Mott hit the ex­it at New En­ter­prise As­so­ciates back in March and is chair­man of the board at Adap­ti­m­mune, Arde­lyx, Epizyme, Imara and Mer­sana.

→ Ju­lia Berret­ta has tak­en the helm as CEO at Mi­lan-based start­up Ep­silen Bio, a spin­off of the San Raf­faele Telethon In­sti­tute for Gene Ther­a­py (SR-Tiget). In ad­di­tion to lead­ing Ep­silen Bio, on the heels of clos­ing €2.3 mil­lion in fi­nanc­ing from Sofinno­va Part­ners, Berret­ta is CEO of Sofinno­va-backed Gene­spire. Berret­ta pre­vi­ous­ly moved through the ranks at Cel­lec­tis, round­ing out her tenure as VP, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and strate­gic plan­ning. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ex-Cel­lec­tis EVP and COO Math­ieu Si­mon will be chair­man of Ep­silen Bio’s board.

Nicole McK­night

→ Not on­ly is Am­abi­otics chang­ing its name, they’re chang­ing CEOs. What was for­mer­ly Am­abi­otics, whose mi­cro­bio­me-de­rived plat­form tar­gets dis­eases such as Parkin­son’s and Alzheimer’s, is now Stel­late Ther­a­peu­tics, with Nicole McK­night as the new CEO. She suc­ceeds Patrice Gar­nier, who led the biotech since 2015 and will con­tin­ue as chair­man and pres­i­dent. McK­night head­ed up the com­pa­ny’s New York of­fice be­fore tak­ing over ef­fec­tive May 18. Stel­late al­so named two peo­ple to their strate­gic ad­vi­so­ry board, Bernard Munos and Robert Schnei­der.

→ Ef­fec­tive Sept. 7, Thomas Loe­wold is jump­ing on board at API man­u­fac­tur­er Cam­brex as CEO and as a board mem­ber. For now, Cam­brex is led by an of­fice of the CEO that in­cludes chair­man Wayne Hewett. Loe­wold is cur­rent­ly pres­i­dent of the flex­i­bles di­vi­sion at pack­ag­ing man­u­fac­tur­er ProAm­pac. From 2012 to 2017, Loe­wold held nu­mer­ous po­si­tions at Ther­mo Fish­er Sci­en­tif­ic, even­tu­al­ly be­com­ing their chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer.

→ Zomed­ica Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, a vet­eri­nary di­ag­nos­tic com­pa­ny, has named Robert Co­hen as in­ter­im CEO of the com­pa­ny. Co­hen takes over from Shameze Ram­pertab — act­ing in­ter­im CEO of the com­pa­ny — who will re­sume his du­ties as CFO. Co­hen joins the com­pa­ny af­ter serv­ing as pres­i­dent and CEO of Em­boMedics. Co­hen has pre­vi­ous­ly as­sumed lead­er­ship roles at Miro­ma­trix Med­ical and Tra­van­ti Phar­ma and jump­start­ed his ca­reer at Pfiz­er, where he spent a lit­tle over a decade.

Stephen Eck

→ Buoyed by can­cer drug da­ta un­veiled in AS­CO ab­stracts, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the HER2 space, Mary­land-based Macro­Gen­ics has wel­comed Stephen Eck as CMO and SVP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. The Pfiz­er and Eli Lil­ly vet had most re­cent­ly been CMO at Im­mat­ics US and pres­i­dent and CEO of Ar­a­vive Bi­o­log­ics. Pri­or to those roles, Eck was at Astel­las Phar­ma as VP and glob­al head of on­col­o­gy med­ical sci­ences.

→ Ef­fec­tive Ju­ly 6, Frank Sanders will be­come US pres­i­dent of pep­tide-based med­i­cine biotech Zealand Phar­ma. Sanders will lead from the Boston of­fice at Zealand, found­ed and based in Copen­hagen and con­tin­u­ing to make ac­qui­si­tions, such as the pur­chase of di­a­betes-fo­cused Va­ler­i­tas in Feb­ru­ary. Sanders was pre­vi­ous­ly the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the US com­mer­cial team at Sage Ther­a­peu­tics and al­so held po­si­tions at J&J and GSK.

→ With a lead prod­uct can­di­date be­ing pre­pared for clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment to treat Duchenne and Beck­er mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy, Col­orado-based Edge­wise Ther­a­peu­tics has re­cruit­ed Kirsten Gruis as their CMO. Gruis was the glob­al head of the neu­ro­mus­cu­lar fran­chise for Roche be­fore head­ing to Edge­wise. She was al­so the CMO at Ag­ilis Bio­ther­a­peu­tics and has al­so held lead­er­ship po­si­tions at WAVE Life Sci­ences, Al­ny­lam and Pfiz­er.

→ A cou­ple of staff moves are tak­ing place at pro­tein degra­da­tion spe­cial­ist Nurix Ther­a­peu­tics, which nabbed $120 mil­lion in fi­nanc­ing and is part­nered with Sanofi and Gilead. Michael Lotze moves in­to the role of chief cel­lu­lar ther­a­py of­fi­cer and Robert Brown is on board as VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. A long­time pres­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh’s De­part­ment of Surgery, Lotze has pre­vi­ous­ly been the CSO at Io­vance (when it was then Li­on Biotech­nolo­gies) and VP of re­search at GSK. Be­fore Nurix, Brown had led cel­lu­lar ther­a­py de­vel­op­ment pro­grams at Al­lo­gene.

Am­baw Bel­lette

→ Cam­bridge, MA-based gene ther­a­py com­pa­ny Fer­Gene, the Fer­ring spin­out fo­cused on treat­ing blad­der can­cer, al­so has sev­er­al new faces. Am­baw Bel­lette, the new chief op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer, was the pres­i­dent of Pho­to­cure, al­so with a blad­der can­cer fo­cus. Vi­jay Kas­turi, who has been named VP of med­ical af­fairs, comes to Fer­Gene af­ter 4 ½ years at EMD Serono, where he even­tu­al­ly moved his way up to head of US med­ical af­fairs, on­col­o­gy. Fur­ther­more, blue­bird bio vet Pe­ter Ola­gun­ju is now Fer­Gene’s SVP of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions. Ola­gun­ju was blue­bird’s VP, glob­al pa­tient op­er­a­tions.

→ Af­ter cor­ralling a new CFO at the be­gin­ning of 2020, an­ti-in­fec­tive im­munother­a­py play­er Aridis Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals is bring­ing in As­traZeneca vet Hasan Jafri as CMO. Paul Mendel­man had been in­ter­im CMO at Aridis since Oc­to­ber and will now be a se­nior med­ical ad­vi­sor. Jafri had been As­traZeneca’s se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor, clin­i­cal re­search and de­vel­op­ment, mi­cro­bial sci­ences, as well as the clin­i­cal head of the an­tibac­te­r­i­al mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies pro­gram.

Marie-Louise Fjäll­skog

→ Marie-Louise Fjäll­skog is head­ed to im­muno-on­col­o­gy play­er Sen­sei Bio­ther­a­peu­tics as their CMO. Fjäll­skog swings in­to Sen­sei af­ter a year as VP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Merus. Pre­vi­ous stops in­clude In­fin­i­ty Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals as VP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and the No­var­tis In­sti­tute for Bio­med­ical Re­search as clin­i­cal pro­gram leader, trans­la­tion­al clin­i­cal on­col­o­gy.

→ Mer­ck vet Christo­pher Dins­more has signed on at Nor­bert Bischof­berg­er-led Kro­nos Bio as their CSO. Be­fore get­ting start­ed at Kro­nos, Dins­more was an en­tre­pre­neur-in-res­i­dence at Third Rock Ven­tures. He was at For­ma Ther­a­peu­tics from 2013-19, most re­cent­ly as VP, head of chem­istry. Be­fore that, he spent 19 years at Mer­ck Re­search Lab­o­ra­to­ries, cul­mi­nat­ing in his tenure as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, dis­cov­ery chem­istry.

→ Rare dis­ease AI up­start Healx — which raised $56 mil­lion in Se­ries B fi­nanc­ing last Oc­to­ber — has ap­point­ed Meri Williams as chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer. Williams joins the com­pa­ny from chal­lenger bank Mon­zo and has had ex­pe­ri­ence serv­ing at Marks and Spencer and Proc­ter & Gam­ble.

Clin­ton Musil

→ Start­ing Ju­ly 1, Clin­ton Musil will be the CFO at Cat­a­lyst Bio­sciences, which is part­ner­ing with Bio­gen on a pre­clin­i­cal can­di­date for dry age-re­lat­ed mac­u­lar de­gen­er­a­tion (AMD). Musil was pre­vi­ous­ly the CBO at Per­son­alis and the VP of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment at AR­MO Bio­sciences, shep­herd­ing their IPO and $1.6 bil­lion sale to Eli Lil­ly.

→ At Ren­o­vaCare, a de­vel­op­er of au­tol­o­gous stem cell ther­a­pies, Robert Cook has been ap­point­ed CFO and board sec­re­tary, a week af­ter the com­pa­ny named Jo Ellen Schwein­le their CMO. Cook had held the CFO post at CorMedix and at a string of oth­er phar­mas pri­or to that such as BioBlast Phar­ma, Im­mune Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Phar­mos Cor­po­ra­tion.

→ Di­a­betes-fo­cused med­ical de­vice com­pa­ny Big­foot Bio­med­ical has reeled in Eli Lil­ly vet Jim Mal­one as CMO. Dur­ing his 21-year stint at Eli Lil­ly, Mal­one, an en­docri­nol­o­gist, served in clin­i­cal re­search.

→ Stock­holm-based im­mune-on­col­o­gy biotech Al­li­ga­tor Bio­science has re­cruit­ed Marie Svens­son as CFO. She as­sumes her new role Sept. 1, and un­til then, An­dreas Jo­han­nes­son will con­tin­ue as in­ter­im CFO. Svens­son is cur­rent­ly CFO at In­Coax Net­works.

→ Mi­croR­NA biotech mi­Ra­gen Ther­a­peu­tics has en­list­ed Lee Rauch as COO. Rauch has held posts as CBO of Glob­al Blood Ther­a­peu­tics, in­ter­im CBO of Onyx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and pres­i­dent and CEO of Nuon Ther­a­peu­tics among oth­ers.

→ Bay­er-part­nered Dew­point Ther­a­peu­tics is adding a pair of big-name phar­ma vets as it looks to make drugs tar­get­ing bio­mol­e­c­u­lar con­den­sates a re­al­i­ty. The Cam­bridge biotech will add for­mer Sanofi CEO Olivi­er Brandi­court and the head of Bay­er’s ven­ture arm, Jür­gen Eck­hardt, to its board. Though both MDs, the pair have held long ca­reers on the busi­ness side of the in­dus­try, which is where their in­sight will be need­ed most, said Dew­point CEO Amir Nashat.

→ New Haven, CT-based rare dis­ease phar­ma Rally­bio has se­lect­ed long­time Pfiz­er vet Jack­ie Schu­mach­er to lead glob­al reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs. Schu­mach­er was VP of reg­u­la­to­ry and qual­i­ty at Lyn­dra Ther­a­peu­tics from 2017-19 af­ter leav­ing Pfiz­er, where she was in the chem­istry, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and con­trols (CMC) reg­u­la­to­ry or­ga­ni­za­tion.

Kia Mote­sharei

→ AI start­up BioX­cel Ther­a­peu­tics, tar­get­ing ther­a­pies in neu­ro­science and im­muno-on­col­o­gy, has locked in Will Kane as EVP and chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer. Kane had been at Al­ler­gan since 2013 and was their SVP and head of the US gen­er­al med­i­cine busi­ness unit. He had al­so held po­si­tions at Pfiz­er and Sepra­cor (which is now Sunovion Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals).

→ Io­n­is ma­jor­i­ty-owned spin­off Akcea has wel­comed Kia Mote­sharei as SVP of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment & cor­po­rate strat­e­gy. Mote­sharei hails from a 6-year stint at Mer­ck KGaA, where he most re­cent­ly served as VP and glob­al head of li­cens­ing and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment, neu­rol­o­gy & im­munol­o­gy. Pri­or to that, Mote­sharei served in roles at Dyax Corp (ac­quired by Shire and sub­se­quent­ly Take­da), Gen­fit and Ac­tivX.

Bao Truong

→ Chi­na-based rare dis­ease and on­col­o­gy phar­ma CAN­bridge, which com­plet­ed its $98 mil­lion Se­ries D fi­nanc­ing in Feb­ru­ary, is bring­ing Car­rie Ann Cook in­to the fold as SVP, glob­al head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Cook is leav­ing Take­da, where she was se­nior di­rec­tor of the Cen­ter for Ex­ter­nal In­no­va­tion, Rare Dis­ease. Be­fore Take­da, she was the head of glob­al busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and li­cens­ing, MS, med­ical de­vices and glob­al health at EMD Serono.

David Luo

→ Jonathan Lim-led can­cer treat­ment start­up Eras­ca is mak­ing two new per­son­nel changes. The San Diego-based biotech has named Bao Truong VP of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs and David Luo VP of clin­i­cal re­search and op­er­a­tions. Truong and Luo are both vets of an­oth­er Lim com­pa­ny, Igny­ta. Truong had been head of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs there, while Luo was VP of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions at Igny­ta at the same time. Truong was al­so head of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs at Ideaya Bio­sciences, while Luo has al­so been VP of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions at Syn­thorx.

→ Hong Kong-based phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal group Ap­to­rum has en­list­ed Ki­ra Shein­er­man as se­nior strate­gic con­sul­tant — she will be based in New York. Shein­er­man is the co-founder, CEO and ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of mol­e­c­u­lar di­ag­nos­tics com­pa­ny Di­amiR Bio­sciences.

→ Martha Man­ning has moved on to Mar­i­nus Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals as VP, gen­er­al coun­sel and sec­re­tary. Man­ning comes to Mar­i­nus, which fo­cus­es on de­vel­op­ing ganax­olone to treat rare seizure dis­or­ders, from Achillion, where she was EVP, gen­er­al coun­sel and sec­re­tary. She al­so had a stint at San­doz as VP and gen­er­al coun­sel.

→ No stranger to chair­man­ships, Dan Lynch is now chair­man of the board at Waltham, MA-based Xilio Ther­a­peu­tics, which changed its name (from Akre­via) in March and raised a shade more than $100 mil­lion in a round led by Take­da to get their IL-2 and aCT­LA4 mAb pro­grams in­to the clin­ic. Lynch is al­so chair­man of the board at blue­bird bio, Blue­print Med­i­cines, Sur­face On­col­o­gy, Trans­late Bio and Spring­Works Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ Duchenne mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy-fo­cused Sol­id Bio­sciences has ap­point­ed Ian Smith as chair­man of the board. The for­mer Ver­tex ex­ec, who was oust­ed last year for code of con­duct vi­o­la­tions, suc­ceeds Sol­id co-founder An­drey Zarur, who had been chair­man since 2013.

Bon­nie Bassler

→ You could say that Roy­al­ty Phar­ma has been kind of a big deal the past 3 weeks. Fresh off scor­ing a mo­men­tous $2.2 bil­lion IPO, Pablo Legor­re­ta’s drug roy­al­ty buy­er has named Bon­nie Bassler to their bord. Bassler, the chair of Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty’s mol­e­c­u­lar bi­ol­o­gy de­part­ment, has al­so sat on the board at Sanofi, Kalei­do Bio­sciences and Re­gen­eron.

→ In the midst of the remde­sivir hub­bub, Javier Ro­driguez has been elect­ed to Gilead’s board of di­rec­tors. Ro­driguez has spent 20 years at De­Vi­ta, which pro­vides health­care ser­vices to pa­tients with kid­ney dis­ease, and is cur­rent­ly their CEO.

→ Cal­ci­fi­ca­tion-fo­cused rare dis­ease up­start In­ozyme Phar­ma has tapped Doug Tre­co, for­mer CEO and co-founder of RA Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, as chair­man of the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors. Tre­co suc­ceeds re­tir­ing Joseph Sch­lessinger. In ad­di­tion, the Cam­bridge, MA-based com­pa­ny has wel­comed Bio­gen vet Lynne Sul­li­van as an in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tor.

→ San Diego-based Are­na Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has cho­sen Katharine Kno­bil to be on their board of di­rec­tors. Kno­bil, the cur­rent CMO and head of R&D at Kalei­do Bio­sciences, had al­so spent more than 20 years at GSK, most re­cent­ly as CMO.

Kavi­ta Pa­tel

→ Flag­ship‘s Sig­ilon, which re­cent­ly bagged $80 mil­lion, has wooed Kavi­ta Pa­tel to its board of di­rec­tors. Pa­tel is a prac­tic­ing physi­cian and served in the Oba­ma ad­min­is­tra­tion as di­rec­tor of pol­i­cy for the Of­fice of In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Af­fairs and Pub­lic En­gage­ment in the White House.

→ Gene and cell ther­a­py start­up Abeona Ther­a­peu­tics has made some new ad­di­tions to its board of di­rec­tors with the ap­point­ments of George Mi­gausky and Paul Mann as in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tors. Mi­gausky pre­vi­ous­ly served as EVP and CFO of Dyax Corp, while Mann served as CFO at Po­lar­i­tyTE.

→ Con­tra­Fect, which was giv­en break­through des­ig­na­tion from the FDA for exe­ba­case to treat me­thi­cillin-re­sis­tant Staph au­reus (MR­SA), has made Lis­han Ak­log a mem­ber of their board of di­rec­tors. Ak­log, whose work as a car­diac sur­geon took him to Brigham and Women’s Hos­pi­tal, Mount Sinai Med­ical Cen­ter, and Har­vard Med­ical School, among oth­ers, is the co-founder, chair­man and CEO of PAVmed.

→ Er­ic Schmidt and Pe­ter Sven­nil­son are now pro­vid­ing their cap­i­tal mar­ket ex­per­tise to the board of di­rec­tors at Red­wood City, CA-based Rev­o­lu­tion Med­i­cines. Schmidt is the CFO at Al­lo­gene, while Sven­nil­son is the founder and man­ag­ing part­ner at The Col­umn Group.

→ French vac­cine de­vel­op­er Val­ne­va has ap­point­ed Jo­han­na Willem­i­na Pat­te­nier, for­mer gen­er­al man­ag­er of No­var­tis Vac­cines and Di­ag­nos­tics, and Sharon Eliz­a­beth Tet­low, founder and man­ag­ing part­ner of Potrero Hill Ad­vi­sors (PHA), to its su­per­vi­so­ry board.