→ When Mythic Therapeutics CEO Alex Nichols spoke to Endpoints News last December about the biotech’s $103 million Series B, he and fellow co-founder Brian Fiske emphasized safety, saying that they’re “really working on trying to overcome what has been one of the most historically challenging obstacles to realizing the full potential of ADCs.” But Mythic will have to look for someone else to take up that mantle.

→ Moderna is hoping this CFO is the one that sticks.

The mRNA titan has poached James Mock from PerkinElmer, an appointment that Peer Review has been waiting on CEO Stéphane Bancel to make since the last hire took a strange turn in May. Jorge Gomez played finance chief for a day when Moderna was made aware of an investigation into his financial reporting practices by the company he just left, Dentsply Sirona. Gomez was out before he was ever really in, triggering yet another search for a CFO and delaying David Meline’s retirement.

Expect some pipeline adjustments at Enanta Pharmaceuticals in the coming years, because new CMO Scott Rottinghaus thinks the antiviral biotech can expand its horizons while also figuring out a way to address the yearslong Covid pandemic with an expected Phase II launch later this year.

“I would like to take a look at what we have as possibilities coming out of the lab. We have such a strong discovery program,” Rottinghaus told Endpoints News. “I don’t think we need to be limited to antivirals here at Enanta; we can take a broader look at some other therapeutic areas.”

As Bernhardt Zeiher retires from Astellas’ chief medical officer position, the selection of his successor says a lot about the changes he’s seen at the company over his 12-year tenure.

Tadaaki Taniguchi, the new CMO, is a surgeon in oncology by training who’s led development for Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca in Japan before moving to the US, where he will be based. His most recent role at AstraZeneca was SVP, head of oncology business unit Asia strategy.

Less than 12 months into her job leading the commercial rollout of one of the world’s biggest-selling biotech products, Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, Corinne Le Goff departed the household name in December 2021, but her future in the industry is just now coming into clear view.

The more than 30-year industry veteran — whose posts have run the gamut across Pfizer, Sanofi, Merck, Roche and Amgen — is now CEO and president of Celsion, which itself is potentially looking to get into the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine landscape, albeit way later than her previous employer.

→ Dave Greenwald’s days as acting CEO of Apertura Gene Therapy are over as Joseph La Barge steps in to lead the biotech, which just launched in April.

Peer Review had been wondering about La Barge’s next landing spot since he left Spark at the end of 2021. In his eight-year stretch with the gene therapy pioneer, he began as chief legal officer and was later promoted to CBO in 2019, when Spark was sold to Roche for $4.3 billion. Deerfield, where Greenwald is VP of business development, put up all the financing for Apertura’s $67 million Series A.

→ Zymeworks used a poison pill maneuver a couple weeks ago as the counterpunch to a $773 million takeover bid by All Blue Falcons, and new CEO Kenneth Galbraith isn’t done piecing the staff together either.

Paul Moore will end his 14-year association with MacroGenics, where he was VP, cell biology, and immunology, and step up to the plate as CSO of Zymeworks on July 18. Tony Polverino, the chief scientist who preceded Moore, didn’t escape the sweeping changes that were enacted by Galbraith in January, when half the C-suite and 25% of the staff overall received pink slips. Neil Klompas and Neil Josephson were named COO and CMO, respectively, and Chris Astle took over as CFO a month later.

Landos Biopharma has landed a new CEO after seven months of being led by an interim chief executive.

Gregory Oakes took the helm of the autoimmune biotech this month, bringing with him nearly 30 years of industry chops, most recently as president of Vifor Pharma’s North America division and, before that, VP at Celgene. Oakes also spent a better part of the 2010s at Novartis, making his way up to head of biopharmaceuticals for generics division Sandoz.