Fred­er­ic Pla Park­er In­sti­tute

→ The Park­er In­sti­tute for Can­cer Im­munother­a­py has wel­comed Fred­er­ic Pla aboard as COO. Pri­or to his ap­point­ment, Pla served as COO at Ge­nom­ic Health. Pla has held ap­point­ments at Life Tech­nolo­gies — as VP, cor­po­rate busi­ness de­vel­op­ment — and GE Health­care. He be­gan his ca­reer at the NASA Glenn Re­search Cen­ter. PI­CI, found­ed by bil­lion­aire Sean Park­er, con­tin­ues to search for a new CEO in the wake of Jef­frey Blue­stone’s de­par­ture to launch a new biotech com­pa­ny.

Lisa von Moltke

→ Lisa von Moltke has stepped in as EVP and CMO at Seres Ther­a­peu­tics, whose SER-109 pro­gram is in Phase III de­vel­op­ment for re­cur­rent C. dif­fi­cile in­fec­tion. She comes to Seres af­ter 5 years at Alk­er­mes, where she most re­cent­ly had been SVP and head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. She’s al­so been VP, clin­i­cal and ex­plorato­ry phar­ma­col­o­gy at Sanofi and se­nior di­rec­tor of trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine at Take­da.

→ Af­ter bid­ding adieu to its then-CEO Michael Pehl more than a year ago, along with a sur­prise com­plete re­sponse let­ter from the FDA, Im­munomedics has en­list­ed No­var­tis On­col­o­gy vet Harout Se­mer­jian as CEO. Se­mer­jian’s ap­point­ment comes just in time for him to steer the com­pa­ny to a new PDU­FA date in June. Most re­cent­ly, Se­mer­jian served as EVP, CCO at Ipsen. Dur­ing his time at No­var­tis On­col­o­gy, Se­mer­jian held var­i­ous roles, cul­mi­nat­ing in his last role as SVP, glob­al head of Ri­bo­ci­clib. With his ap­point­ment, Scott Canute will step down from his role as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor and re­sume his role as board mem­ber.

→ Gade­ta — fo­cused on hema­to­log­i­cal can­cers and sol­id tu­mors — has tapped Mar­co Lon­dei as CEO. Lon­dei’s ap­point­ment comes at a time in which the com­pa­ny is tran­si­tion­ing from a pre­clin­i­cal stage com­pa­ny to a clin­i­cal stage com­pa­ny. Lon­dei hops aboard af­ter a stint as CMO and chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer of Anap­tys­Bio. In ad­di­tion, Lon­dei held posts at No­var­tis and Bris­tol My­ers Squibb.

→ Gail McIn­tyre has stepped up as CEO of Ar­a­vive af­ter the res­ig­na­tion of Rekha Hem­ra­jani. McIn­tyre joined Ar­a­vive in 2016 and most re­cent­ly served as the com­pa­ny’s CSO. In ad­di­tion, the board ap­point­ed the founder of Es­hel­man Ven­ture Fred Es­hel­man as chair­man of the board. Jay Shep­ard, Srini­vas Akkara­ju and Robert Hoff­man have all re­signed from the board of di­rec­tors.

Harout Se­mer­jian

→ British bank Bar­clays has ap­point­ed JP Mor­gan vet Khaled Habayeb as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor in health­care eq­ui­ty cap­i­tal mar­kets (ECM). Habayeb will be based in New York. Habayeb joins the com­pa­ny from Deutsche Bank and pre­vi­ous­ly served as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and head of health­care ECM at UBS.

→ Changes at Ar­ix Bio­science have been plen­ti­ful re­cent­ly. In March, it was Rober­to Ia­cone join­ing Ar­ix; in April, they’re do­ing a big­ger shuf­fle. Co-founder Joe An­der­son will step down ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, while Naseem Amin, cur­rent­ly non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, will step in as ex­ec­u­tive chair­man. The board of di­rec­tors al­so will have a new look as Jonathan Pea­cock, co-founder and chair­man, and Art Pap­pas, non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, will ex­it the board at the Lon­don biotech’s An­nu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing.

→ Fol­low­ing up its ad­di­tion of Pe­ter Linde as CMO, Mor­phic Ther­a­peu­tic has named Marc Schegerin CFO and COO. Schegerin heads to the Waltham, Mass­a­chu­setts biotech from Ar­Qule, where he was CFO, trea­sur­er and head of strat­e­gy & com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­fore Mer­ck ac­quired the on­col­o­gy-fo­cused drug de­vel­op­er for $2.7 bil­lion. Else­where in the in­dus­try, he pre­vi­ous­ly held di­rec­tor­ships at Bio­gen and Sage.

Marc Schegerin Mor­phic

→ Swiss-based Polyneu­ron Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, which reeled in $22.6 mil­lion in Se­ries A fi­nanc­ing last year, has ap­point­ed De­bra Bark­er as CMO. Be­fore join­ing Polyneu­ron, which fo­cus­es on au­toim­mune dis­eases of the ner­vous sys­tem, Bark­er was chief med­ical and de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer of Polyphor. She al­so had a num­ber of roles at No­var­tis, no­tably as glob­al pro­gram head, on­col­o­gy, as well as po­si­tions at GSK and Roche.

→ Cal­lid­i­tas Ther­a­peu­tics, known for its de­vel­op­ment of Ne­fe­con to po­ten­tial­ly treat the in­flam­ma­to­ry re­nal dis­ease IgA nephropa­thy (IgAN), has a new CMO. Richard Philip­son has al­most a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry of ex­pe­ri­ence in the in­dus­try and tran­si­tions from his CMO role at Trizell to the Stock­holm-based phar­ma. Philip­son’s pre­vi­ous stops in­clude Take­da as ex­ec­u­tive med­ical di­rec­tor and Glax­o­SmithK­line, where he round­ed out his near­ly 16-year tenure as dis­ease area head and act­ing CMO for the rare dis­eases unit.

→ Hous­ton-based Ar­a­vive is un­der­go­ing a shake­up at the top. Out goes CEO Rekha Hem­ra­jani, who’s be­ing re­placed at the helm by CSO Gail McIn­tyre. Jay Shep­ard, Srini­vas Akkara­ju and Robert Hoff­man have re­signed from the board of di­rec­tors while Fred Es­hel­man was named chair­man of the board.

De­bra Bark­er

→ Tim Adams has an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion as CFO of Ob­sE­va SA, a Swiss bio­phar­ma cen­tered on women’s re­pro­duc­tive health. He’ll be re­placed by Fa­bi­en de Ladon­champs, Ob­sE­va’s VP, cor­po­rate af­fairs & fi­nance. Adams seeks new op­por­tu­ni­ties af­ter be­ing CFO for three years.

→ Lara Hashimo­to has tak­en over as CMO at SOPHiA GE­NET­ICS, join­ing the da­ta-dri­ven med­i­cine biotech ef­fec­tive April 1. Pri­or to her ar­rival, Hashimo­to had been chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer at Roche Se­quenc­ing So­lu­tions, and be­fore that, she was in charge of IVD (in vit­ro di­ag­nos­tic) de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion at Roche Di­ag­nos­tics.

→ In­cyte vet Richard Levy has leapt on­to the board of di­rec­tors at Con­stel­la­tion Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Levy served as EVP and chief drug de­vel­op­ment and med­ical of­fi­cer at In­cyte and pre­vi­ous­ly served at Cel­gene and San­doz/No­var­tis.

Kevin O’Dono­van H.E.L

→ Chad Mirkin is step­ping down as chair­man of the board of di­rec­tors at Al­ler­gan-part­nered gene ex­pres­sion ex­pert Ex­i­cure. Tim­o­thy Wal­bert, CEO of Hori­zon Ther­a­peu­tics, has been named as his suc­ces­sor. Mirkin will re­main on the board.

→ Glob­al de­vel­op­er and man­u­fac­tur­er of lab­o­ra­to­ry tools H.E.L Group has wel­comed Kevin O’Dono­van as chair of the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors, tak­ing over from in­ter­im chair Jon An­drew. O’Dono­van was pre­vi­ous­ly the founder of Hy­baid, a mol­e­c­u­lar bi­ol­o­gy in­stru­men­ta­tion com­pa­ny.

GlaxoSmithKline’s Benlysta isn’t alone in the small circle of approved lupus nephritis drugs anymore.

Little Aurinia Pharmaceuticals has gotten the green light from the FDA to start marketing its first and only program, voclosporin, under the brand name Lupkynis — something CEO Peter Greenleaf says it’s been ready to do since December.

Regulators went right down to the wire on the decision, keeping the company and the entire salesforce it’s already assembled on its toes.

The firehose of biopharma news is gushing these days.

That’s why broader and deeper is the theme for 2021 at Endpoints. You can expect new coverage outside our core R&D focus, with deeper reporting in some key areas. When John Carroll and I launched Endpoints nearly five years ago, we were wading in waist-high waters. Now we’re a team of 25 full-time staffers (and growing) with plans to cover the flood of biopharma news, Endpoints-style.

Diem Nguyen considers herself a “point of inflection seer.”

Helping businesses strategize and scale up is “where my sweet spot is,” the Pfizer veteran said. So when she was tapped to take the helm at gene therapy-focused Xalud Therapeutics, she knew it would be a great fit.

Xalud, founded in 2009 and headquartered in New York City, is working on non-viral gene therapies to treat pathologic inflammation. The company’s lead candidate, XT-150, is a locally injectable plasmid DNA gene therapy expressing Interleukin 10 (IL-10) — an upstream modulator for many pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory mediators.