Chris Roberts Black Di­a­mond

→ Af­ter spend­ing two years as en­tre­pre­neur-in-res­i­dence at SR One — the ven­ture arm of his for­mer em­ploy­er, Glax­o­SmithK­line — Chris Roberts is back at the front­lines of biotech.

As CSO of Black Di­a­mond Ther­a­peu­tics, Roberts joins CEO David Ep­stein in dri­ving their tar­get­ed ki­nase in­hibitors to­ward the clin­ic. He will lead re­search and ear­ly de­vel­op­ment on the biotech’s MAP plat­form, which ze­roes in on al­losteric mu­ta­tions of onco­genes. Its lead can­di­date, BDTX-189, tar­gets EGFR and HER2 re­gard­less of tu­mor type.

Can­cer, and par­tic­u­lar­ly ge­net­ic dri­vers of the dis­ease, was some­thing Roberts had some ex­pe­ri­ence with as VP of chem­istry and ear­ly de­vel­op­ment at Sy­ros, where he fo­cused on drug­ging tran­scrip­tion and was cred­it­ed for guid­ing two as­sets in­to clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. Be­fore that, he had spear­head­ed in­fec­tious dis­ease projects at GSK and Genelabs. 

Cam­bridge, MA-based Black Di­a­mond has al­so re­cruit­ed Matt Lu­cas from Yu­man­i­ty Ther­a­peu­tics to lead chem­istry and Tai-An Lin from Mer­ck KGaA to lead bi­ol­o­gy. Its first Phase I/II tri­al is slat­ed for the first half of next year.

→ Things haven’t been the same for can­cer-fo­cused Five Prime Ther­a­peu­tics, ever since their part­nered drug cabi­ral­izum­ab in com­bi­na­tion with Op­di­vo showed signs of weak ef­fi­ca­cy and a trou­bling safe­ty pro­file in an ear­ly-stage pan­cre­at­ic can­cer study in late 2017. As a re­sult of that fail­ure, the com­pa­ny axed 41 jobs in Jan­u­ary — rough­ly 20% of the com­pa­ny’s work­force — to fo­cus on late-stage pipelines. The South San Fran­cis­co-based com­pa­ny has tapped William “Bill” Ringo as act­ing in­ter­im CEO, suc­ceed­ing Aron Knicker­bock­er “who has re­signed from the com­pa­ny to pur­sue new chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties.” Cur­rent­ly, Ringo is the chair­man of com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors  — and de­spite his tem­po­rary new role, will re­main in that po­si­tion. Ringo’s past ex­pe­ri­ence in­cludes pres­i­dent and CEO of Ab­genix and gigs at Pfizer and Eli Lil­ly.

Nadir Mah­mood Nkar­ta

→ Af­ter NASH con­tender CymaBay Ther­a­peu­tics re­leased neg­a­tive da­ta back in June show­ing that its lead drug se­ladel­par per­formed worse than a place­bo at a three-month read­out from its on­go­ing 52-week mid-stage study, the com­pa­ny’s stock plum­met­ed about 44.5%. Now, its CMO Pol Boudes is hit­ting the ex­it “to ex­plore oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties.” Be­fore join­ing CymaBay, Boudes served in the same po­si­tion at Am­i­cus Ther­a­peu­tics and held oth­er stints at Berlex Lab­o­ra­to­ries (lat­er merged with Bay­er Health­Care Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals), Wyeth-Ay­erst Re­search, Hoff­mann-La Roche and Pas­teur-Merieux Serums & Vac­cines. The com­pa­ny has ini­ti­at­ed a search for a suc­ces­sor. 

→ Fol­low­ing plans to map out clin­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing of CAR-NK af­ter a $114 mil­lion Se­ries B round led by Sam­sara ear­li­er this month, Nkar­ta Ther­a­peu­tics has pro­mot­ed Nadir Mah­mood from SVP, cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment to the new­ly-cre­at­ed po­si­tion of CBO. Mah­mood pre­vi­ous­ly head­ed cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment at Sec­ond Genome and brings ex­pe­ri­ence from roles at Kythera Bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals (ac­quired by Al­ler­gan) — where he over­saw the pre­clin­i­cal re­search for their lead mol­e­cule, Ky­bel­la — and Gold­man Sachs. 

An­drew Sto­ber En­cod­ed

→ Back in June, Or­chard Ther­a­peu­tics an­nounced the pric­ing of its IPO — 9 mil­lion Amer­i­can de­posi­tary shares (ADSs) for to­tal gross pro­ceeds of about $128 mil­lion. Now, the UK gene ther­a­py de­vel­op­er has an­nounced that its CCO, Ja­son Meyen­burg is leav­ing the com­pa­ny “to take on a chief ex­ec­u­tive role in the in­dus­try.” Un­til the com­pa­ny can find a per­ma­nent re­place­ment, Mark Rothera, the com­pa­ny’s pres­i­dent and CEO, will as­sume glob­al com­mer­cial lead­er­ship re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. 

→ Gene ther­a­py-fo­cused En­cod­ed Ther­a­peu­tics has ex­pand­ed its lead­er­ship team with the ap­point­ments of An­drew Sto­ber as chief man­u­fac­tur­ing of­fi­cer and David Mc­N­inch as CBO. Sto­ber joins the com­pa­ny af­ter lead­ing gene ther­a­py man­u­fac­tur­ing at No­var­tis and af­ter roles at AveX­is, Bio­gen, Mer­ck and Am­gen. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Mc­N­inch served as chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer at Prothena and dur­ing his stint at In­ter­Mune he helped or­ga­nize the launch of the first treat­ment for IPF and the com­pa­ny’s lat­er ac­qui­si­tion by Roche. Mc­N­inch al­so spent time at Ipsen, Genen­tech, No­var­tis and As­traZeneca pri­or to his new gig.

David Mc­N­inch En­cod­ed

→ In April, Ever­est Med­i­cines inked a deal with Im­munomedics — mak­ing it one of the top 5 in-li­cens­ing com­pa­nies in Chi­na in the past 11 years. Ever­est is now bol­ster­ing its team with sev­er­al new ap­point­ments. Ja­son Brown, who has been serv­ing as the com­pa­ny’s SVP of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment, has been ap­point­ed to the po­si­tion of CBO. In ad­di­tion to his ap­point­ment, Ever­est has named pre­vi­ous Sanofi ex­ec, Frank Grams, as SVP of al­liance man­age­ment; for­mer Sanofi Chi­na head, Sophia Zhu, as SVP of port­fo­lio de­vel­op­ment and strate­gic plan­ning; Ex-Ab­bott gen­er­al man­ag­er, Alex Wang, as head of in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness and for­mer head of fi­nance of Am­gen Chi­na, Daniel Weng, as vice pres­i­dent of fi­nance.

→ Flag­ship-backed Foghorn Ther­a­peu­tics has ex­pand­ed its lead­er­ship with the ap­point­ments of Samuel Agres­ta as CMO and Al­lan Reine as CFO. Agres­ta for­mer­ly served in the same po­si­tion at In­fin­i­ty Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals — and has worked as vice pres­i­dent and head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Agios Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, where he over­saw the de­vel­op­ment and reg­is­tra­tion of ivosi­denib (Tib­so­vo) and enasi­denib (Id­hi­fa). Reine hops on board af­ter serv­ing in the same po­si­tion at Pieris Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Stints at Lom­bard Odi­er As­set Man­age­ment, SAC Cap­i­tal Ad­vi­sors and Alexan­dra In­vest­ment Man­age­ment dot Reine’s re­sume.

→ Salarius Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has ap­point­ed Scott Jor­dan on board as CBO and Mark Rosen­blum as ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent fi­nance and in­ter­im CFO. With these new ad­di­tions, the com­pa­ny can fur­ther op­er­a­tions in its lead clin­i­cal pro­grams in Ew­ing sar­co­ma and ad­vanced sol­id tu­mors to aim at pro­duc­ing po­ten­tial da­ta in 2020. Jor­dan tran­si­tioned to the role af­ter serv­ing as Salarius’ CFO. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he served as CFO at Be­ta Cat Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and chief in­vest­ment of­fi­cer at Stingray Ther­a­peu­tics. He’s al­so the co-founder and ad­vi­sor at Health­ios Xchange. Rosen­blum was pre­vi­ous­ly brought on to the com­pa­ny as a fi­nan­cial con­sul­tant to as­sist with the merge with Flex Phar­ma. Pri­or to that role, Rosen­blum served as chair­man and CEO at Ac­tive­Care.

Du­ane Valz

→ Prince­ton, New Jer­sey-based Oys­ter Point Phar­ma has wel­comed Dan Lochn­er as CFO and John Snis­arenko as CCO. Lochn­er joins af­ter a gig as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor at Gold­man Sachs. Snis­arenko hops over to the com­pa­ny fol­low­ing time as group vice pres­i­dent and head of Shire’s (now Take­da) oph­thalmic busi­ness, lead­ing sales for Xi­idra, Lu­cen­tis, Rit­ux­an and Actem­ra.

→ in­sitro — led by AI star Daphne Koller — has added Matthew Ras­mussen as vice pres­i­dent of da­ta en­gi­neer­ing and Du­ane Valz as gen­er­al coun­sel. Ras­mussen joins the com­pa­ny from Myr­i­ad Ge­net­ics as vice pres­i­dent of soft­ware en­gi­neer­ing and a pre­vi­ous stint at Coun­syl. Valz joins from Zymer­gen — where he served as the com­pa­ny’s first in-house lawyer and gen­er­al coun­sel, help­ing to struc­ture their Se­ries B and C fi­nanc­ings. Valz held pre­vi­ous po­si­tions at Google, Ya­hoo! and Howard Rice Ne­merovs­ki Canady Falk & Rabkin (now com­bined with Arnold & Porter). 

Chris­tine Loh

→ Back in Ju­ly, Cel­gene col­lab­o­rat­ed with Nim­bus Ther­a­peu­tics to bag an op­tion for their ‘high­ly prized’ I/O tar­get, an HPK1 in­hibitor pro­gram. Now, Chris­tine Loh has joined Nim­bus as their SVP, head of bi­ol­o­gy af­ter spend­ing time as the vice pres­i­dent of trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine at Kymera Ther­a­peu­tics. Pre­vi­ous­ly, she served as the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of re­search — fo­cus­ing on he­mo­phil­ia and sick­le cell dis­ease — at Bio­gen spin­out Biover­a­tiv. She has held po­si­tions at Sir­tris, Pfiz­er and ICOS Cor­po­ra­tion. 

→ X4 Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals — which col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Leukemia & Lym­phoma So­ci­ety in May to ac­cel­er­ate the de­vel­op­ment of their lead prod­uct can­di­date ma­vorix­afor for the treat­ment of Walden­ström’s macroglob­u­line­mia — has named one of its orig­i­nal founders, Re­na­to Skerlj, as SVP, re­search and de­vel­op­ment. He draws from his ex­pe­ri­ence as the in­ven­tor of both pler­ix­afor, a stem cell mo­bi­liz­er ap­proved by the FDA in 2008, and er­tapen­em, an an­ti-bac­te­r­i­al ap­proved by the FDA in 2001. Skerlj’s re­sume in­cludes gigs at Lyso­so­mal Ther­a­peu­tics, Gen­zyme and AnorMED. 

Vi­nee­ta Be­langer Busi­ness Wire

→ Two years af­ter Zosano Phar­ma re­port­ed pos­i­tive Phase III da­ta for its mi­cronee­dle patch sys­tem for de­liv­er­ing an old mi­graine drug — set­ting up a cam­paign to file an NDA — the com­pa­ny has brought on Dushyant Pathak as SVP of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Most re­cent­ly, Pathak served as the as­so­ciate vice chan­cel­lor of re­search, in­no­va­tion and tech­nol­o­gy com­mer­cial­iza­tion, as well as the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Ven­ture Cat­a­lyst  at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia Davis. Pathak brings ex­pe­ri­ence from his times at iP­ier­ian, as CEO and pres­i­dent of Cellex­i­con, founder of Ven­tureEdge and roles at Axys Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Ch­i­ron. 

→ While their lead drug can­di­date LYR-210 is in Phase II for the treat­ment of chron­ic rhi­nos­i­nusi­tis, ear, nose and throat dis­eases, Lyra Ther­a­peu­tics has added Vi­nee­ta Be­langer as the com­pa­ny’s SVP of clin­i­cal af­fairs. Be­langer most re­cent­ly served as vice pres­i­dent of clin­i­cal af­fairs at Ave­dro and has held po­si­tions at Iron­wood Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Neu­ro­Vi­sion and Al­con.

Pe­ter Catal­i­no

→ Pe­ter Catal­i­no has as­sumed a new gig at Ver­tex as SVP, head glob­al mar­ket­ing. He tran­si­tions to the com­pa­ny af­ter time as glob­al busi­ness fran­chise head car­dio-meta­bol­ic med­i­cines at No­var­tis. While at No­var­tis he worked un­der Paul Hud­son — crank­ing out block­buster heart drug En­tresto  and con­tribut­ing to the Akcea-Io­n­is li­cense deal. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Catal­i­no was an as­so­ciate prin­ci­pal at McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny. 

→ Last week, Soli­genix brought Jonathan Guar­i­no on board as their SVP and CFO, suc­ceed­ing Karen Krume­ich who hit the ex­it to pur­sue new op­por­tu­ni­ties. This week the com­pa­ny made the ad­di­tion of Mer­ck vet Daniel Ring as vice pres­i­dent of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and strate­gic plan­ning. Ring brings ex­pe­ri­ence from his time as vice pres­i­dent of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Ex­ela Phar­ma Sci­ences and as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of cor­po­rate li­cens­ing at Mer­ck. 

→ Allen Poir­son has hopped to twoXAR as the com­pa­ny’s SVP of bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Be­fore join­ing the AI-dri­ven com­pa­ny, Poir­son served as a part­ner at Sil­i­con Val­ley-based VC firm Mighty Cap­i­tal. He for­mer­ly served as the CEO of Sony sub­sidiary Sony Biotech­nol­o­gy and held po­si­tions at NASA and Howard Hugh­es Med­ical In­sti­tute. 

Allen Poir­son

→ Med­ical de­vice com­pa­ny, BioVen­trix, has tapped Pe­dro Mar­ques as vice pres­i­dent of sales for the Eu­ro­pean mar­ket. Mar­ques pre­vi­ous stints in­clude roles as vice pres­i­dent of glob­al ac­cess and clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Medtron­ic and as VP of in­ter­na­tion­al sales for Heart­Ware. 

→ Bio­Th­eryX — fo­cused on mul­ti-ki­nase in­hi­bi­tion and tar­get­ed pro­tein degra­da­tion — has wel­comed Al­ler­gan vet Jef­frey Ed­wards to its board of di­rec­tors. Ed­wards spent 22 years at Al­ler­gan — hold­ing sev­er­al roles in­clud­ing EVP, fi­nance and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and CFO. 

→ Ted Love, cur­rent pres­i­dent and CEO of Glob­al Blood Ther­a­peu­tics — which re­cent­ly re­ceiv­ing pri­or­i­ty re­view from the FDA for its sick­le cell dis­ease drug — has joined the board of di­rec­tors at Por­to­la Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Love pre­vi­ous­ly worked at Onyx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Nu­velo, Ther­a­vance and Genen­tech.

→ Cam­bridge-based Verve Ther­a­peu­tics — who is purs­ing a gene-edit­ing ap­proach to coro­nary artery dis­ease — can now count An­drew Geall, as a mem­ber of the com­pa­ny’s sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board. Geall is the vice pres­i­dent of for­mu­la­tions, an­a­lyt­ics and chem­istry at Avid­i­ty Bio­sciences. 

→  An­a­lysts hate to lose a biotech CFO they’ve come to trust and ad­mire — es­pe­cial­ly if they’re be­ing blind­sided by a sur­prise ex­it. And Alex­ion’s un­ex­pect­ed an­nounce­ment af­ter the mar­ket close on Tues­day that Paul Clan­cy is on his way out — to be re­placed by a strat­e­gy and busi­ness chief they know vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing about — qual­i­fied as a nasty shock for some high-pro­file com­pa­ny ob­servers. 

Arad­hana Sarin

The Q3 re­port will be a joint ef­fort of Clan­cy and his re­place­ment, Arad­hana Sarin, who will then pick up the CFO job as Clan­cy con­tin­ues to ad­vise the com­pa­ny in­to the mid­dle of next year. So what’s up with that? Clan­cy on­ly ar­rived 2 years ago, step­ping in from Bio­gen, where he al­so com­mand­ed lots of re­spect in a spot­light po­si­tion.

His hir­ing was seen as a coup for Alex­ion watch­ers, as CEO Lud­wig Hantson put to­geth­er his new team, re­or­ga­nized the com­pa­ny af­ter a bruis­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion over ethics vi­o­la­tions, moved to Boston and laid out his ba­sic strat­e­gy on pro­tect­ing the big Soliris fran­chise. Sarin will take over with a lot to prove. And some an­a­lysts are set­ting the bar high.