→ Since leav­ing a 25-year ca­reer and the pres­i­dent of glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals ti­tle at Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb in 2005, Don Hay­den has kept him­self busy as a con­sul­tant and ad­vis­er to bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies, some­times jug­gling sev­en or eight board ap­point­ments. But af­ter a few months as in­ter­im CEO of Wind­MIL Ther­a­peu­tics, he’s ready to “sub­stan­tial­ly pull back” on all those com­mit­ments as he tran­si­tions to a full-time role.

→ Af­ter four years at Blue­print Med­i­cines, Beni Wolf is hop­ping over to Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts-based KSQ Ther­a­peu­tics as chief med­ical of­fi­cer, as it pre­pares to take its lead ex­per­i­men­tal drug in­to the clin­ic in 2020. “KSQ’s CRISPRomics ap­proach holds tremen­dous po­ten­tial for de­vel­op­ing high-im­pact can­cer med­i­cines,” Wolf said in a state­ment.

→ An em­bat­tled Mer­ri­mack $MACK — hav­ing been forced to aban­don its clin­i­cal ex­per­i­men­tal drugs af­ter a se­ries of set­backs and job cuts — last week lost its chief med­ical of­fi­cer. In a fil­ing, the com­pa­ny said CMO Ser­gio San­til­lana had ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion.

→ A year af­ter or­ches­trat­ing Su­cam­po Phar­ma’s sale to Mallinck­rodt, Pe­ter Green­leaf is still in hot de­mand. Au­rinia has poached him from the helm of Cere­cor, where he’s helped lay a foun­da­tion for a new pipeline for or­phan neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders in the past year.

At Au­rinia, the new CEO will shift gears to oph­thal­mol­o­gy and im­munol­o­gy as the Cana­di­an biotech launch­es an am­bi­tious chal­lenge to Al­ler­gan’s best-sell­ing dry eye drug Resta­sis. In a Phase II head-to-head read out weeks ago, Au­rinia’s vo­closporin demon­strat­ed a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment on ef­fi­ca­cy com­pared to Resta­sis — a sur­pris­ing win on a sec­ondary end­point. The pri­ma­ry end­point of beat­ing the block­buster drug’s tol­er­a­bil­i­ty score was not met.

→ Bare­ly a day af­ter Dai­ichi Sankyo wrapped a mam­moth col­lab­o­ra­tion deal with As­traZeneca, the Japan­ese phar­ma an­nounced a suc­ces­sion plan for its CEO. George Nakaya­ma, who’s keep­ing his chair­man seat, is pass­ing the reins to Sunao Man­abe, cur­rent­ly pres­i­dent and COO. This marks one of the fi­nal tran­si­tions as Nakaya­ma winds down his decades-long ca­reer run with the com­pa­ny, start­ing at Dai­ichi sub­sidiary Sun­to­ry in 1979. He del­e­gat­ed the pres­i­dent role two years ago.

→ En­tra­da Ther­a­peu­tics, the start­up launched by 5AM and MPM Cap­i­tal to de­vel­op ther­a­pies based on a fam­i­ly of cell-pen­e­trat­ing small cyclic pep­tides that Ohio State pro­fes­sor De­hua Pei dis­cov­ered, has found a chief med­ical of­fi­cer in Mario Saltarel­li. “His ex­pe­ri­ences at both ven­ture-backed biotech­nol­o­gy and glob­al phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies have in­volved him in every as­pect of bring­ing a med­i­cine from bench to bed­side,” said CEO Di­pal Doshi, re­fer­ring to Saltarel­li’s stints at Syn­tim­mune, Ver­tex, An­nex­on and Mallinck­rodt, among oth­ers.

→ France’s In­nate Phar­ma has wooed As­traZeneca vet Jen­nifer But­ler to lead the US op­er­a­tions it has set up af­ter ac­quir­ing Lu­mox­i­ti from the British drug­mak­er in a rich add-on col­lab­o­ra­tion deal. But­ler’s of­fi­cial ti­tle will be EVP and gen­er­al man­ag­er of In­nate Phar­ma US. Most re­cent­ly, she was chief busi­ness of­fi­cer, chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer and head of US op­er­a­tions at Tes­sa Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ Af­ter cel­e­brat­ing the ap­proval of a Parkin­son’s ther­a­py he helped ac­quired for Acor­da Ther­a­peu­tics, chief busi­ness of­fi­cer An­drew Hind­man has de­cid­ed to step down. Hind­man, who joined Acor­da in 2014, is now “in­ter­est­ed in pur­su­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in the wider bio­phar­ma in­dus­try,” CEO Ron Co­hen said. Over the next few tran­si­tion­ing months, he will con­tin­ue to help eval­u­ate ex-US com­mer­cial part­ner­ships for In­bri­ja as the com­pa­ny awaits a Eu­ro­pean reg­u­la­to­ry de­ci­sion.

→ De­ci­phera $DCPH has scooped Agios’ chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer Steve Ho­ert­er to fill re­tir­ing CEO Michael Tay­lor’s shoes. The Waltham, MA-based biotech is plac­ing its trust in Ho­ert­er’s sales acu­men, es­pe­cial­ly for can­cer drugs, ac­quired through­out his ca­reer at com­pa­nies like Clo­vis, Roche, Genen­tech, Ch­i­ron, and Eli Lil­ly. The first Phase III tri­al of ripretinib, in gas­troin­testi­nal tu­mors, is due to read out soon.

→ Ox­ford, Eng­land-based vac­cine de­vel­op­er Emergex has re­cruit­ed Big Phar­ma vet Athana­sios Pa­padopou­los to be its CMO. Jump­ing from Sanofi — where he helped de­vel­op the ground­break­ing but ill-fat­ed Deng­vax­ia — Pa­padopou­los in­her­its a uni­ver­sal Fla­vivirus vac­cine can­di­date now poised for Phase I in H2 2019 and a new R&D fa­cil­i­ty for Emergex’s syn­thet­ic vac­cines.

→ Re­Vi­ral has tapped Seth Het­her­ing­ton to steer its lead RSV can­di­date in­to pe­di­atric Phase IIa tri­als. As CMO (a role he re­cent­ly held for sev­en years at Geno­cea Bio­sciences), Het­her­ing­ton will lead the biotech in nav­i­gat­ing a field full of nasty sur­pris­es, though Re­Vi­ral has rea­sons to be con­fi­dent giv­en pos­i­tive re­sults in a pre­vi­ous PhI­Ia. He will be based in the British com­pa­ny’s US of­fice.

→ Four months af­ter plop­ping it­self down in the cen­ter of the neu­ro­sciences field with a pipeline from Pfiz­er and $350 mil­lion in launch cash from Bain Cap­i­tal, Cerev­el Ther­a­peu­tics has re­cruit­ed a sea­soned cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem drug de­vel­op­er to be­come its CMO. Ray­mond Sanchez, who jumps from Ot­su­ka, is tasked with shep­herd­ing Cerev­el’s Parkin­son’s (dopamine D1 ag­o­nist) and epilep­sy (GA­BA A pos­i­tive mod­u­la­tor) pro­grams in­to Phase III. At the Japan­ese phar­ma, Sanchez over­saw CNS work at Avanir among oth­er re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.