High-pro­file biotech leader Deb­o­rah Dun­sire takes the helm at XTu­it, fo­cused on can­cer and fi­bro­sis

Deb­o­rah Dun­sire is back in biotech.

About nine months af­ter Dun­sire left a fast-sink­ing Fo­rum Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, she’s tak­en the helm of a biotech start­up with big plans to break new ground in can­cer and fi­bro­sis R&D. Dun­sire, the for­mer chief of the icon­ic Mil­len­ni­um and one of the high­est pro­file biotech ex­ecs in the Boston biotech hub, has been named CEO of XTu­it.

She’s tak­ing over from in­ter­im CEO Alan Crane, a Po­laris part­ner who helped ger­mi­nate years of sci­en­tif­ic think­ing on the part of some lo­cal leg­ends to help ramp up the start­up, which jumped out of stealth mode last June with a $22 mil­lion ven­ture round. Dun­sire knows just about every­one in the Boston biotech com­mu­ni­ty from her days at Mil­len­ni­um, and they didn’t need an in­tro­duc­tion when it came time for Crane to find a full-time chief for XTu­it.

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