→ Apparently Tal Zaks took George Costanza’s concept on Seinfeld of going out on a high note to heart at Moderna, making his plans to leave his lofty perch as CMO in February after the biotech became a household name for millions receiving its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. Starting July 6, J&J vet Paul Burton will succeed one of Stéphane Bancel’s most trusted associates, climbing on board as Moderna pushes past Covid-19 and concentrates on other vaccine candidates.

→ Jason Campagna and Sandip Kapadia were two execs who punched their tickets out of Intercept as things went pear-shaped, and the teetering NASH biotech has found their replacements as CMO Michelle Berrey and CFO Andrew Saik take over their positions. Berrey, the ex-president and CEO at Chimerix, was Pharmasset’s CMO from 2007-12. Just before her Pharmasset days, she had been with GlaxoSmithKline as VP, viral diseases, clinical pharmacology & discovery medicine. Berrey will also be Intercept’s president of R&D in addition to CMO. SVP Gail Cawkwell had been pinch-hitting after Campagna’s departure and subsequent move to Q32 Bio.

Marc Semigran was at sleepaway camp in Hopewell Junction, NY, when Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon. He packed into a social hall with a couple of hundred kids whose eyes were glued to one small, staticky, black-and-white television as Armstrong descended the ladder.

It sparked an interest in physics for Semigran whose focus later turned to medicine because he wanted to help people. That, and “I’m probably too tall, I don’t think I would have made it as an astronaut,” he quipped.

A few months ago, as Recursion hammered out an IPO that would value them at over $3 billion, its CSO, Sharath Hegde, hopped on a plane and flew to San Francisco to visit a small, modestly backed startup, working out of an unmarked warehouse between a brewery and an air-conditioning seller off the highway.

Hegde had joined Recursion in June 2019, a month before they hauled in a $121 million Series C. It was an odd choice for the AI biotech. Recursion claimed they could remake the drug industry by generating huge datasets from their automated labs and running them through state of-the-art machine learning algorithms. Hegde was an old-fashioned drug discoverer, a pharmacologist who had spent the last 20 years playing with molecules the traditional way at Theravance.

→ As its Covid-19 vaccine with Pfizer continues to inoculate millions, BioNTech is changing CFOs beginning July 1 with Jens Holstein stepping into the role previously occupied by Sierk Poetting, who will direct his full attention to his work as COO moving forward. Holstein was CFO at MorphoSys from 2011-20 and held a number of leadership roles within the Fresenius universe before that time.

Poetting has seen BioTech turn into a household name since his tenure began in 2014, and he’s been a crucial voice on the vaccine distribution efforts, indicating some weeks ago that BioNTech has held discussions on ramping up capacity. “There is still room for improvement. But that will ultimately also depend on demand,” Poetting told Reuters in late April.

Most CMOs don’t start out as art students. But after getting her bachelor’s in art history from Princeton University, Jennifer Wheler decided to go after an MD from Cornell, kicking off a decades-long career in biopharma. Her next move? Leading the team at Codiak BioSciences to deliver therapeutics using a form of cellular postal service called exosomes.

“I was captivated by the science and the potential for exosomes to have transformational impact in cancer and other disease areas,” the incoming CMO told Endpoints News via email. “Codiak has a potent combination of great science and wonderfully experienced and kind people — it doesn’t get much better.”

Like many who work in biopharma, Richard Paulson got started in the field because of a love of science.

Paulson had just finished business school and was looking to start a career that married his two passions. While looking for jobs, he thought of his grandmother who had struggled with Alzheimer’s disease, recalling how he saw first-hand what innovative medicines can do for patients. Ultimately, he started his first job in the space as a sales rep at Glaxo Wellcome, one of GlaxoSmithKline’s predecessors before its merger with SmithKline Beecham in 2000.

→ Gene editing player Graphite Bio notched a $150 million Series B megaround to boost its total to $195 million, and a month later, Jane Grogan is moving from another startup to be Graphite’s CSO. Grogan is leaving ArsenalBio after serving as chief scientist since its launch in October 2019. She was at Genentech from 2004-19, with her last five years as head of adaptive tumor immunity and principal scientist of cancer immunology discovery research.

→ Bayer has handed out two promotions in its US operations, with Nelson Ambrogio and John Berrios both getting the bump. Ambrogio becomes SVP, general manager of oncology, while Berrios take Ambrogio’s place as SVP, general manager of women’s healthcare. Ambrogio is a longtime Bayer vet who’s held such titles internationally as general manager in Australia and New Zealand and managing director in Portugal. Berrios, who joined Bayer in 2016 after 15 years at AstraZeneca, takes on his new responsibilities after a year as VP, commercial operations.

→ If it seems like Covid-19 vaccine bridesmaid Novavax is shuttling staffers in and out, you’re not alone. This week, Greg Covino announced he’s leaving the biotech after holding the CFO job for a blink-and-you-miss-it tenure. An advisory role within the company awaits for Covino, who came to Novavax just five months ago from Bristol Myers Squibb, while CCO and CBO John Trizzino juggles even more executive responsibility by taking on the interim CFO title.