Vic­ki Good­man

Af­ter 18 years at the FDA and climb­ing the cor­po­rate lad­der in bio­phar­ma, Vic­ki Good­man is now in the biotech C-suite for the first time. The new CMO and ex­ec­u­tive VP of prod­uct de­vel­op­ment for Ex­elix­is start­ed on Jan. 4, fly­ing out to the biotech’s head­quar­ters just out­side sun­ny San Fran­cis­co be­fore re­turn­ing home and fly­ing all the way back to Philly, where she is based.

Good­man got her pas­sion for med­i­cine as a young child — it didn’t sur­prise any­one that she ma­jored in bio­chem­istry be­fore go­ing through med­ical school and res­i­den­cy, fin­ish­ing up in the ear­ly 2000s with an em­pha­sis in in­ter­nal med­i­cine, med­ical on­col­o­gy and hema­tol­ogy. But for her, there was an un­der­ly­ing de­sire to use sci­ence to help peo­ple and work on prob­lems that im­pact peo­ple’s health.

Part of that de­sire came from per­son­al tragedy: Good­man lost her moth­er to breast can­cer right as Good­man fin­ished med­ical school. She de­cid­ed to fo­cus her ca­reer in on­col­o­gy.

It was a piv­otal time in the field. Sci­ence was chang­ing — par­tic­u­lar­ly doc­tors’ un­der­stand­ing of bi­ol­o­gy and can­cer.

“It was be­com­ing very clear that our un­der­stand­ing of hu­man bi­ol­o­gy — and in­creas­ing un­der­stand­ing of some of the mol­e­c­u­lar ge­net­ic un­der­pin­nings of can­cer — could re­al­ly have the po­ten­tial to rev­o­lu­tion­ize treat­ment of pa­tients with can­cer,” Good­man told End­points News.

She not­ed No­var­tis’ ty­ro­sine ki­nase in­hibitor Gleevec for chron­ic myeloid leukeima was ap­proved in 2001, near the end of her res­i­den­cy. The first-of-its-kind tar­get ther­a­py fun­da­men­tal­ly trans­formed treat­ment of that type of can­cer, and pushed her to­wards drug de­vel­op­ment.

“We re­al­ly watched how that treat­ment — which was mol­e­c­u­lar­ly tar­get­ed — trans­formed the treat­ment of that dis­ease from one that in­ex­orably pro­gressed,” Good­man said. “We didn’t have drugs that re­al­ly af­fect­ed the un­der­ly­ing dis­ease. And ul­ti­mate­ly, you know, pa­tients would have a blast cri­sis and die of the dis­ease. You were see­ing with treat­ment with Gleevec, the tu­mors, can­cer cells just melt­ed away, the leukemic cells just dis­ap­peared.”

Af­ter spend­ing some time at the FDA, Good­man got hired at Glax­o­SmithK­line, where she spent 8 years work­ing in clin­i­cal and med­i­cine de­vel­op­ment be­fore go­ing over to Bris­tol My­ers Squibb in 2015. While at Bris­tol My­ers, Good­man worked as a VP, de­vel­op­ment lead and was on the on­col­o­gy se­nior lead­er­ship team there, ul­ti­mate­ly work­ing on block­buster PD-(L)1 in­hibitor Op­di­vo.

That’s when Good­man first got ac­quaint­ed with Ex­elix­is — she helped lead the part­ner­ship be­tween BMS and Ex­elix­is on the Check­Mate 9ER tri­al, which com­bined Op­di­vo with Ex­elix­is’ lead can­di­date, the now-ap­proved drug Cabome­tyx for re­nal cell car­ci­no­ma.

Af­ter leav­ing BMS in 2020, she went to Mer­ck, where she worked on PD-(L)1 block­buster Keytru­da and oth­er Mer­ck can­di­dates in in­di­ca­tions such as tho­racic ma­lig­nan­cies, head and neck can­cers, breast and gy­ne­co­log­ic can­cers, and hema­tol­ogy.

Which brought her back to Ex­elix­is. Good­man heard that the CMO po­si­tion was open, and when they reached out to her, she didn’t want to let go of an op­por­tu­ni­ty, so she went for it.

So what’s next for Good­man and Ex­elix­is? In Good­man’s own words, “There’s a lot to do,” es­pe­cial­ly on the da­ta side of things. There’s ex­pect­ed read­outs for Cabome­tyx for this year — some of them in Phase III tri­als for even more in­di­ca­tions for the drug. There’s al­so pipeline ex­pan­sion and set­ting up a reg­is­tra­tional tri­al this year for XL092, the com­pa­ny’s new TKI in­hibitor, and down the road for XL102, their new CDK7 in­hibitor.

“The oth­er key fo­cus for me is re­al­ly on the peo­ple and teams and mak­ing sure that we have the right ca­pa­bil­i­ties in place,” Good­man said.

And it plays right in­to one of the things on her lead­er­ship to-do list: start build­ing a de­vel­op­ment team out on the East Coast — which in Good­man’s view, is a cru­cial step for fu­ture suc­cess.

— Paul Schloess­er

Hap­py 2022, Peer Re­view read­ers! The new year has start­ed with an un­par­al­leled del­uge of ap­point­ments, so buck­le up:

Ak­shay Vaish­naw

→ A new era at Al­ny­lam be­gins now with Yvonne Green­street as CEO, a new siR­NA deal with No­var­tis, and a pro­mo­tion: Ak­shay Vaish­naw has been el­e­vat­ed to pres­i­dent af­ter near­ly four years as pres­i­dent of R&D with the RNAi pi­o­neer. Vaish­naw has been an Al­ny­lam ex­ec since 2006, leav­ing Bio­gen to take a job as VP of clin­i­cal re­search, and he’s been steadi­ly ris­ing in the com­pa­ny ever since.

As for Al­ny­lam’s for­mer CEO, the beat goes on with John Maraganore’s mis­sion to “be a grand­dad” for oth­er com­pa­nies — Peer Re­view may as well in­sti­tute a Maraganore Me­ter to track all the gigs he ac­cu­mu­lates. What’s on tap for him now? First, he be­came an ex­ec­u­tive part­ner at RTW, as de­tailed by our Paul Schloess­er; At­las Ven­ture tweet­ed this week that Maraganore will lend his ex­per­tise as a ven­ture ad­vi­sor; next, Maraganore has been named chair­man of the board at Hemab, a Dan­ish blood dis­or­der biotech helmed by for­mer Co­di­ak ex­ec Ben­ny Sorensen; SQZ Biotech­nolo­gies al­so came call­ing this week, tap­ping Maraganore as a strate­gic ad­vi­sor; and fi­nal­ly, he will be chair of the ad­vi­so­ry coun­cil at Stan­ley Crooke’s non-prof­it n-Lorem Foun­da­tion.

Kate Hav­i­land

→ Last year, Blue­print Med­i­cines earned its fourth ap­proval by cross­ing the goal line with Ay­vak­it for ad­vanced sys­temic mas­to­cy­to­sis, and joined the M&A par­ty by pur­chas­ing Lengo Ther­a­peu­tics for $250 mil­lion up­front. On April 4, Blue­print will have a change at the top as CEO Jeff Al­bers pass­es the ba­ton to Kate Hav­i­land, who was hired as CBO in 2016 and has been COO since 2019. Hav­i­land ven­tured off to Blue­print af­ter her tenure as VP, rare dis­eases and on­col­o­gy pro­gram lead­er­ship at Idera; she’s al­so led com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment Sarep­ta and PTC Ther­a­peu­tics. Al­bers will be ex­ec­u­tive chair­man un­til the end of the year, at which time he will con­tin­ue as chair­man.

An­oth­er piece of Blue­print news: Al­so ef­fec­tive April 4, Christi­na Rossi, the com­pa­ny’s chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer since 2018, will re­place Hav­i­land as COO.

Javier Szwar­cberg

→ Mike Grey’s days are up as in­ter­im CEO of Spruce Bio­sciences af­ter pinch-hit­ting for the re­tired Richard King, now en­trust­ing the com­pa­ny to Javier Szwar­cberg. Fol­low­ing a short stay as VP of R&D and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Hori­zon, Szwar­cberg piv­ot­ed to Ul­tragenyx, be­com­ing SVP, head of pro­gram and port­fo­lio man­age­ment. Since Feb­ru­ary 2020, Szwar­cberg had been group VP and head of pro­gram and port­fo­lio de­vel­op­ment for JJ Bi­en­aimé at Bio­Marin. An­oth­er Spruce note: Samir Gharib has been el­e­vat­ed to pres­i­dent and will re­tain his du­ties as CFO.

Ken­neth Gal­braith

→ There will be a new sher­iff in town at can­cer bis­pecifics biotech Zymeworks as Ken­neth Gal­braith re­places CEO Ali Tehrani “on or be­fore” Feb. 1. Tehrani spent 18+ years at the helm and he’ll stick around as an ad­vi­sor dur­ing the tran­si­tion pe­ri­od. Gal­braith has fa­mil­iar­i­ty with the com­pa­ny al­ready as a for­mer board mem­ber from 2009-13, and the ex-CEO of Lim­i­nal Bio­Sciences and Fairhaven Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has been an en­tre­pre­neur-in-res­i­dence with Syn­cona since last April. There’s one more bit of C-suite ac­tiv­i­ty to sort out — CFO and 15-year Zymeworks vet Neil Klom­pas has tacked on the role of COO with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

Hu­bert Chen

→ While we were on a break (apolo­gies to Ross from “Friends”), Hu­bert Chen re­signed as CMO of Metacrine ef­fec­tive New Year’s Eve, leav­ing CEO Pre­ston Klassen to fill the va­can­cy. Chen found an­oth­er CMO gig at ADARx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, an RNA edit­ing start­up that raised the cur­tain on a $75 mil­lion Se­ries B co-led by Or­biMed and SR One in Sep­tem­ber 2021. Chen joined Metacrine in Au­gust 2018 af­ter four years with Pfenex — first as CMO, then as chief sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical of­fi­cer — and has pre­vi­ous­ly been VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Aileron Ther­a­peu­tics. Like many com­pa­nies, Metacrine ran in­to a brick wall with NASH, throw­ing in the tow­el with its pro­gram in Oc­to­ber and in­stead con­cen­trat­ing on a Phase II for in­flam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease with MET642.

Joshua Grass

→ The Grass is al­ways green­er: Joshua Grass has suc­ceed­ed the re­tir­ing Alain Baron as CEO of San Diego-based up­start Escient Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, with Baron stay­ing on as a strate­gic ad­vi­sor through Q1. Af­ter 15 years at Bio­Marin, where he was SVP, busi­ness and cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment, Grass launched the rare dis­ease play Modis Ther­a­peu­tics in 2018 while he was an en­tre­pre­neur-in-res­i­dence at F-Prime Cap­i­tal. The next year, Zo­genix scooped up Modis for $250 mil­lion up­front.

→ Peer Re­view re­ceived a state­ment on be­half of Spark that Joseph La Barge has stepped down “to be­gin fo­cus­ing on his next chap­ter in biotech.” La Barge jumped on board at Spark in 2013 as chief le­gal of­fi­cer and had served as CBO for al­most two years, play­ing a piv­otal role in the ac­qui­si­tion by Roche.

Si­mon Allen

→ Si­mon Allen will be CEO of Aneb­u­lo Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, which seeks to turn the ta­bles on cannabi­noid over­dose and sub­stance abuse. He will re­place Daniel Schnee­berg­er, who an­nounced his res­ig­na­tion ef­fec­tive Feb. 1. Allen re­turned for a sec­ond tour of du­ty as CBO for Am­brx in March 2019 af­ter hold­ing the same po­si­tion at the Cal­i­for­nia biotech from 2010-15. Austin-based Aneb­u­lo, whose lead can­di­date ANEB-001 is in a Phase II proof-of-con­cept study for acute cannabi­noid in­tox­i­ca­tion, has al­so brought in Scott An­der­son as head of in­vestor re­la­tions and pub­lic re­la­tions.

Julien Mi­ara

→ At Paris-based biotech Onx­eo, Julien Mi­ara has re­placed CEO Ju­dith Gre­ci­et on an in­ter­im ba­sis start­ing this week. A mem­ber of Onx­eo’s board since Sep­tem­ber 2020, Mi­ara’s run at In­vus be­gan more than a decade ago, earn­ing a pro­mo­tion in 2018 to lead its Eu­ro­pean team. Gre­ci­et was named CEO of Onx­eo in 2011, back when the com­pa­ny was known as BioAl­liance Phar­ma un­til it merged with Topotar­get and was re­brand­ed. The DNA dam­age re­sponse biotech is now chaired by Epizyme chief med­ical and de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer She­fali Agar­w­al.

Er­ic Hobbs

→ Er­ic Hobbs will be re­as­signed from CEO “to pres­i­dent of the An­ti­body Ther­a­peu­tics busi­ness line” at dig­i­tal cell bi­ol­o­gy play­er Berke­ley Lights when his re­place­ment is found. Hobbs first came to Berke­ley Lights in 2013 as se­nior di­rec­tor of R&D and was pro­mot­ed to CEO in March 2017. Berke­ley Lights struck while the IPO iron was hot in the sum­mer of 2020, blow­ing by the stan­dard $100 mil­lion they ini­tial­ly pen­ciled in with a $205 mil­lion up­sized of­fer­ing.

Fran­cis Sare­na

→ Fran­cis Sare­na has signed on to be COO of Apex­i­gen, whose CD40 ag­o­nist soti­gal­imab is in Phase II stud­ies in a num­ber of can­cer in­di­ca­tions, name­ly melanoma. From 2011-21, Sare­na was an ex­ec with Five Prime, serv­ing as chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer from 2016 un­til Am­gen padded its on­col­o­gy pipeline by pur­chas­ing the com­pa­ny for $2 bil­lion. This is Apex­i­gen’s sec­ond ma­jor ex­ec­u­tive ap­point­ment in the last sev­er­al months af­ter bring­ing in CMO Frank Hsu from Onc­ter­nal Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ Michael Skyn­ner has ped­aled in­to a new post this week at Bi­cy­cle Ther­a­peu­tics, shift­ing from COO to chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer for CEO Kevin Lee’s squad while VP, hu­man re­sources and com­mu­ni­ca­tions Al­is­tair Milnes steps in­to the COO slot. Skyn­ner, Bi­cy­cle’s COO since 2018, first ar­rived in 2016 as VP, op­er­a­tions and dis­cov­ery af­ter his days as head of ex­ter­nal al­liances, rare dis­ease re­search unit with Pfiz­er. Bi­cy­cle put a lit­tle air in Io­n­is’ tires in Ju­ly 2021 with an oligonu­cleotide deal that saw Io­n­is fork over $45 mil­lion up­front.

Joseph McIn­tosh

→ Stephen Squin­to’s nu­cle­ic acid gene ther­a­py biotech Gen­nao Bio has pegged Joseph McIn­tosh as CMO and Anuj Goswa­mi as gen­er­al coun­sel. McIn­tosh was in this space a mere eight months ago when he took the CMO job at Jaguar Gene Ther­a­py, spend­ing the pre­vi­ous year as the med­ical chief of Aru­vant. This is Goswa­mi’s first for­ay in­to biotech af­ter a 21-year ca­reer in pri­vate prac­tice with Philade­phia-based Bal­lard Spahr.

Es­ther Ra­javelu

→ Rare dis­ease play­er Ful­crum Ther­a­peu­tics has found a new CFO in Es­ther Ra­javelu, who most re­cent­ly served as a se­nior eq­ui­ties re­search an­a­lyst at UBS. Ra­javelu’s ex­pe­ri­ence al­so in­cludes stints at Deutsche Bank and Op­pen­heimer & Co. Ful­crum’s stock price went through the roof last sum­mer on the strength of da­ta for its sick­le cell drug FTX-6058.

→ New York’s In­dap­tus Ther­a­peu­tics has tapped Boy­an Litchev as CMO, the lat­est move in a whirl­wind of stops the last five years. Let’s break it all down: Litchev had on­ly led glob­al clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Shore­line Bio­sciences since the sum­mer of 2021, and as we told you then, he spent his pre­vi­ous 16 months as head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, on­col­o­gy at Po­sei­da. Litchev was briefly the ex­ec­u­tive med­ical di­rec­tor, head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, on­col­o­gy at Halozyme af­ter two years with Akcea, and he joins In­dap­tus in time to push its lead can­cer can­di­date De­coy20 in­to Phase I some­time this year.

Stephanie Oestre­ich

→ Dan­ish biotech Galec­to, part of the 2020 IPO fren­zy, has waved in Stephanie Oestre­ich as CBO. Af­ter 12 years with No­var­tis, Oestre­ich was the in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness leader for Avastin at Roche, then jumped over to Evotec, where she was head of aca­d­e­m­ic part­ner­ships and in­vest­ments, North Amer­i­ca & Asia. She just fin­ished an ab­bre­vi­at­ed run as VP of op­er­a­tions and head of al­liance man­age­ment with Mnemo Ther­a­peu­tics. Galec­to’s lead prod­uct, GB0139, is an in­haled galectin-3 in­hibitor in a Phase IIb tri­al for id­io­path­ic pul­monary fi­bro­sis.

David McIn­tyre

→ David McIn­tyre has been named CFO of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease play­er An­thos Ther­a­peu­tics, launched near­ly three years ago by Black­stone and No­var­tis. An ex-part­ner at Ap­ple Tree Part­ners, McIn­tyre just had a year-long stint as fi­nance chief at Tes­sa Ther­a­peu­tics. An­thos’ lead can­di­date, the mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body abelacimab, is be­ing de­vel­oped as an an­ti­co­ag­u­lant to pre­vent or treat ve­nous throm­boem­bolism.

Sarah Liu

→ GI dis­ease play­er 9 Me­ters Bio­phar­ma out of Raleigh, NC has named Sarah Liu chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer and Al Med­war head of in­vestor re­la­tions. Liu spear­head­ed glob­al com­mer­cial strat­e­gy for the spinal mus­cu­lar at­ro­phy drug Zol­gens­ma while she was VP and head of world­wide new prod­uct plan­ning and VP, glob­al mar­ket­ing at No­var­tis Gene Ther­a­pies. The Take­da and Ab­bott vet has al­so been VP of com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions and strate­gic plan­ning at Melin­ta Ther­a­peu­tics. Med­war swings in­to 9 Me­ters from Aruna Bio, where he was EVP of cor­po­rate & com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment.

→ Kevin Lynch is mak­ing his way over to No­table Labs as CBO. Lynch comes aboard af­ter ca­reers as CBO of Re­cur­sion and VP of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Vir Biotech­nol­o­gy. Not on­ly that, but ear­li­er in his ca­reer, Lynch ran a 20-year stint over at Ab­bott/Ab­b­Vie as VP, search and eval­u­a­tion.

Marie-Louise Fjäll­skog

→ Marie-Louise Fjäll­skog has left Sen­sei Bio­ther­a­peu­tics to be­come CMO at Finnish im­munother­a­py biotech Faron Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. While Fjäll­skog was CMO at Sen­sei, the com­pa­ny rolled to a $152 mil­lion IPO in ear­ly 2021. In ad­di­tion to her new role at Faron, Fjäll­skog al­so serves as as­so­ciate pro­fes­sor of on­col­o­gy at Up­p­sala Uni­ver­si­ty in Swe­den.

Christo­pher Ho­ran

→ Christo­pher Ho­ran has an­swered the bell as chief tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer at Arti­va Bio­ther­a­peu­tics, Mer­ck’s CAR-NK part­ner that dou­bled the fun in 2021 with a $120 mil­lion raise and a Nas­daq de­but. Af­ter 13 years at Mer­ck and an­oth­er 14 with Genen­tech where he rose to head of prod­uct and glob­al sup­ply chain man­age­ment, Ho­ran served as chief tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer at Der­mi­ra and, most re­cent­ly, San­Bio.

→ UK-based 4D phar­ma made the SPAC-tac­u­lar move of re­verse merg­ing with blank check com­pa­ny Longevi­ty Ac­qui­si­tion Cor­po­ra­tion and has now re­cruit­ed John Doyle as CFO. Doyle had a quick cup of cof­fee as Chi­as­ma’s fi­nance chief last year af­ter three years at Ve­rastem, where he was pro­mot­ed to VP, fi­nance and in­vestor re­la­tions.

Erik Vah­to­la

→ Giv­ing the Te­va re­ject laquin­i­mod an­oth­er go for pa­tients with non-in­fec­tious non-an­te­ri­or uveitis, Swe­den’s Ac­tive Biotech has named Big Phar­ma vet Erik Vah­to­la as CMO. Vah­to­la was based in Fin­land when he worked for Roche from 2013-16, and since 2019 he had been head of med­ical af­fairs, on­col­o­gy at Bay­er. Else­where at Ac­tive Biotech, CSO He­le­na Eriks­son’s 23 years with the com­pa­ny have come to a close, but she’ll stay ac­tive, so to speak, in a con­sult­ing role.

Ju­la In­rig

→ Tra­vere Ther­a­peu­tics, the com­pa­ny for­mer­ly known as Retrophin which was op­er­at­ing un­der “Phar­ma Bro” Mar­tin Shkre­li, has tacked on Ju­la In­rig as CMO. In­rig joins the com­pa­ny from IQVIA, where she served as glob­al head of the re­nal cen­ter of ex­cel­lence, right as they try once again to push for the ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval of sparsen­tan.

Kirsten Gruis

→ Di­aMed­ica, fo­cused on de­vel­op­ing treat­ments for neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders and kid­ney dis­eases, has named Kirsten Gruis as CMO. Gruis brings with her a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence from her for­mer stints at Edge­wise Ther­a­peu­tics (CMO), Roche (neu­ro­mus­cu­lar fran­chise head), Ag­ilis Bio­ther­a­peu­tics, Wave Life Sci­ences, Idera, Al­ny­lam and Pfiz­er.

→ Salt Lake City-based El­e­var Ther­a­peu­tics changed CEOs in 2021 when Kate McKin­ley took over for Alex Kim. As we ring in 2022, El­e­var has se­lect­ed Bris­tol My­ers vet Jen­ny Gizzi as chief peo­ple of­fi­cer. Gizzi was the VP of hu­man re­sources for Are­na Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Pfiz­er’s M&A jew­el to close out last year, af­ter a year with Mi­rati as head of hu­man re­sources and site op­er­a­tions. Among the drug can­di­dates in El­e­var’s pipeline is rivo­ceranib, de­vel­oped by Hen­grui and ap­proved in Chi­na for gas­tric can­cer and sec­ond-line ad­vanced he­pa­to­cel­lu­lar car­ci­no­ma.

→ Eye drop de­vel­op­er Oculis has turned its eyes on Webb Ding as its next COO and gen­er­al man­ag­er, Chi­na. Ding makes his way to Oculis from Fre­se­nius Kabi, where he served as coun­try pres­i­dent for Chi­na. Pri­or to that, Ding was with No­var­tis in Chi­na for a decade and no­tably served as gen­er­al man­ag­er of No­var­tis Vac­cines Greater Chi­na and Tianyuan Bio-Phar­ma. Ear­li­er in his ca­reer, Ding al­so served in roles at Bris­tol My­ers and Xi’an Janssen.

→ Bio­sion has wel­comed An­tho­ny Yeh as chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer and head of Chi­na busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Yeh hails from CStone Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, where he served as VP, head of cor­po­rate strat­e­gy, in­vestor re­la­tions and cap­i­tal mar­ket.

Di­ana Chung

→ Terns Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals is giv­ing it the old col­lege try with NASH and brings two ap­point­ments to this week’s Peer Re­view: Jef­frey Jasper as SVP, head of re­search and Di­ana Chung as chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer. Most re­cent­ly, Jasper was VP, drug dis­cov­ery at Rube­do Life Sci­ences, and he al­so served as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, re­search sci­ence at Mer­ck Re­search Lab­o­ra­to­ries. Chung has been at Terns since Sep­tem­ber 2019, where she start­ed as VP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and op­er­a­tions be­fore mov­ing to SVP in No­vem­ber 2020.

Ju­dith Robert­son

→ Aus­tralian eye dis­ease biotech Opthea has ap­point­ed Ju­dith Robert­son as chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer. Robert­son is no stranger to Opthea, where she has served on the board of di­rec­tors (chaired by Ovid chief Je­re­my Levin) since June 2021. Robert­son has held the po­si­tion of CCO at both Eleu­sis and Aerie Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and at J&J’s Janssen, she was glob­al com­mer­cial VP, im­munol­o­gy and oph­thal­mol­o­gy.

→ Can­cer-fo­cused Curis has locked in three new ex­ecs: Fe­lix Geissler (VP of med­ical af­fairs) just held the same post at Hori­zon, which plunked down $25 mil­lion up­front in a deal with Alpine Im­mune Sci­ences last month; Kim­ber­ly Stein­mann (VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment) is a Boehringer In­gel­heim vet who had been a con­sul­tant for Take­da’s on­col­o­gy de­vel­op­ment pro­gram and was ex­ec­u­tive med­ical di­rec­tor for or­phan dis­eases with Gri­fols; and Do­ra Fer­rari (VP of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions), who had a 10-year ca­reer at Ar­Qule, comes to Curis from Aileron Ther­a­peu­tics, where she was VP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and pro­gram man­age­ment. Curis’ IRAK4 ki­nase in­hibitor CA-4948 is in a Phase I/II study for acute myeloid leukemia or high-risk myelodys­plas­tic syn­dromes, both as a monother­a­py and in com­bi­na­tion with azac­i­ti­dine or vene­to­clax.

→ Every­thing’s com­ing up Chemomab in Peer Re­view, whether it’s Dale Pfost hit­ting the scene as CEO and lat­er be­com­ing chair­man or nam­ing David Wein­er as in­ter­im CMO. This time the Is­raeli fi­brot­ic and in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­ease biotech has in­stalled Jack Lawler as VP of glob­al clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment op­er­a­tions. Lawler hails from Goldfinch Bio, where he was VP, clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions and da­ta man­age­ment, and he was di­rec­tor of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment op­er­a­tions at Vi­roPhar­ma be­fore Shire’s $4.2 bil­lion ac­qui­si­tion.

Rim­ma Stein­hertz

→ Putting mu­ta­tions of the MAPK and mTOR path­ways un­der the prover­bial mi­cro­scope, Im­muneer­ing has picked up Ei­sai and Mer­ck alum Rim­ma Stein­hertz as VP, project and al­liance man­age­ment. Stein­hertz had spent the last two years as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, glob­al pro­gram leader, port­fo­lio & pro­gram man­age­ment, on­col­o­gy at Glen­mark sub Ich­nos Sci­ences, and she was the group di­rec­tor, ex­ter­nal col­lab­o­ra­tions, on­col­o­gy dur­ing her time at Mer­ck.

→ Re­pare Ther­a­peu­tics has brought on Philip Her­man as its EVP of com­mer­cial and new prod­uct de­vel­op­ment. Her­man most re­cent­ly served as CCO at Y-mAbs Ther­a­peu­tics, where he over­saw the launch of the neu­rob­las­toma drug Danyelza. Her­man has al­so served as head of mar­ket­ing at Dyax and di­rec­tor of mar­ket­ing at Van­da Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Matthew Vin­cent

→ Pe­ter Kolchin­sky or­ches­trat­ed Point Bio­phar­ma’s Nas­daq de­but through a SPAC deal in March 2021, and this week the ra­dio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal play­er has wel­comed Matthew Vin­cent as SVP, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Vin­cent had held the same ti­tle at Avac­ta Life Sci­ences since 2017. A month ago, Point pro­mot­ed Justy­na Kel­ly to COO and bid farewell to chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer Michael Got­tlieb, who left “to pur­sue oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

→ An­nounced on Christ­mas Eve, Danielle Camp­bell has re­turned to aTyr Phar­ma, this time as VP of hu­man re­sources af­ter work­ing in HR there for a brief pe­ri­od in 2015-16. Camp­bell just closed out her five years with Po­sei­da as se­nior di­rec­tor, fa­cil­i­ties op­er­a­tions af­ter start­ing out in HR for Er­ic Os­tertag’s crew. San Diego-based aTyr is seek­ing re­demp­tion with lead can­di­date ATYR1923 for pa­tients with pul­monary sar­coido­sis af­ter stum­bling with Project OR­CA in 2018, trig­ger­ing a 30% re­duc­tion in its staff.

→ Philly-based Con­text Ther­a­peu­tics has named Christo­pher Beck as SVP of op­er­a­tions and Mark Fletch­er as VP of R&D. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the com­pa­ny will be part­ing ways with its cur­rent head of CMC Bill Rencher as he plans for re­tire­ment. Beck joins the women’s on­col­o­gy-fo­cused com­pa­ny from Galera Ther­a­peu­tics, where he served as VP of pro­gram man­age­ment. Pri­or to that, Beck spent near­ly a decade with Shire and had stints at Mer­ck and As­traZeneca. Mean­while, Fletch­er comes aboard with ex­pe­ri­ence from his time at Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal As­so­ciates, Hik­ma Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal US Op­er­a­tions, Dou­glas Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, En­do Health So­lu­tions and Lig­and Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Joan­na Auch

→ South San Fran­cis­co heart dis­ease biotech Tenaya Ther­a­peu­tics, which hit Nas­daq last sum­mer not long af­ter a $106 mil­lion crossover round, has en­list­ed Joan­na Auch — for­mer­ly the head of HR North Amer­i­ca for San­ten — as SVP of peo­ple and cul­ture. Tenaya has al­so named Ul­tragenyx chief le­gal of­fi­cer and EVP Karah Parschauer to the board of di­rec­tors, which al­so in­cludes Eli Cas­din and June Lee. The ex-as­so­ciate gen­er­al coun­sel at Al­ler­gan is on the boards of Evo­lus and Aneb­u­lo Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ The pan­dem­ic crushed Es­pe­ri­on’s hopes of mak­ing its cho­les­terol ther­a­py Nexle­tol in­to a block­buster, prompt­ing Tim Mayleben to throw the CEO keys to Shel­don Koenig and put some­one with com­mer­cial bona fides in­to the top spot. Af­ter dras­tic cut­backs in Oc­to­ber, Es­pe­ri­on has turned to Ben­jamin Look­er to be gen­er­al coun­sel. Look­er comes from Tril­li­um, where he was gen­er­al coun­sel for a biotech that Pfiz­er pur­chased for more than $2 bil­lion. At Mor­phoSys from 2017-19, Look­er — an EMD Serono alum — was VP, head of US le­gal and glob­al busi­ness op­er­a­tions.

Ronald Kras­now

→ T-knife need­ed just a year to pull to­geth­er a $110 mil­lion Se­ries B in Au­gust 2021 af­ter its ini­tial fi­nanc­ing round, and the biotech fo­cused on T cell re­cep­tor (TCR) en­gi­neered T cell ther­a­pies has en­list­ed Ronald Kras­now as gen­er­al coun­sel. Kras­now had a 10-year run as Re­lyp­sa be­fore mov­ing on to Men­lo Ther­a­peu­tics as gen­er­al coun­sel, sec­re­tary and chief com­pli­ance of­fi­cer and his most re­cent stop as the COO of Arch On­col­o­gy.

→ Jared Co­hen has moved in­to the role of gen­er­al coun­sel at Boston-based En­tra­da Ther­a­peu­tics, now tar­get­ing neu­ro­mus­cu­lar dis­eases like Duchenne with oligonu­cleotide ther­a­pies and nab­bing $116 mil­lion in fund­ing last March to do so. Since April 2020, Co­hen had served as En­tra­da’s VP, head of IP and le­gal af­fairs. Pri­or to that, he served as VP of le­gal af­fairs at Reper­toire Im­mune Med­i­cines.

Rahul Khara

→ Rahul Khara has tak­en on the role of gen­er­al coun­sel at Disc Med­i­cine, which plucked bitop­er­tin out of moth­balls from Roche and re­cent­ly raked in a $90 mil­lion Se­ries B. Be­fore Mer­ck backed up the Brinks truck, Khara spent three years at Ac­celeron as VP, le­gal and chief com­pli­ance of­fi­cer. In an­oth­er Ac­celeron con­nec­tion, its for­mer R&D chief and one-time Cel­gene CMO Jay Back­strom has joined Disc Med­i­cine’s board of di­rec­tors.

Mi­ra Chau­rushiya

→ West­lake Vil­lage BioPart­ners is wel­com­ing Mi­ra Chau­rushiya to the fray as a se­nior part­ner. Chau­rushiya hops aboard af­ter a six-year stint at 5AM Ven­tures. Dur­ing her time at 5AM, Chau­rushiya in­vest­ed in and served as di­rec­tor or ob­serv­er on the boards of mul­ti­ple or­ga­ni­za­tions, in­clud­ing Pre­ci­sion Nanosys­tems (ac­quired by Dana­her), Ideaya Bio­sciences, En­liv­en Ther­a­peu­tics, Escient Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Mag­net­ic In­sight, Novome Biotech­nolo­gies, Puri­gen Biosys­tems, and TM­RW.

→ Leg­end’s CEO Ying Huang is now tak­ing a seat on its board of di­rec­tors as a Class I di­rec­tor. Huang has served in the po­si­tion of CEO since Sep­tem­ber 2020 af­ter his pre­de­ces­sor Frank Zhang was placed un­der house ar­rest as part of a cus­toms in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing Gen­Script. Pri­or to his role at the helm of the com­pa­ny, Huang start­ed as Leg­end’s CFO af­ter stints at Bo­fA Se­cu­ri­ties, Wells Far­go, Cred­it Su­isse and Scher­ing-Plough.

Yuan Xu

→ Speak­ing of Leg­end, ex-CEO Yuan Xu is the lat­est ad­di­tion to the board of di­rec­tors at Xilio Ther­a­peu­tics — chaired by Dan Lynch — af­ter Sara Bon­stein and the afore­men­tioned Christi­na Rossi be­came board mem­bers last year. Xilio made the Nas­daq leap in Oc­to­ber 2021 with a near­ly $118 mil­lion IPO.

→ Led by first-year CEO and for­mer Ovid pres­i­dent and CMO Amit Rakhit, Hous­ton port­fo­lio com­pa­ny Sporos Bioven­tures has giv­en ex-Black Di­a­mond CMO Rachel Humphrey a seat on the board of di­rec­tors. Humphrey, who al­so is on the board at Xilio, is the CEO of an un­named “biotech start­up fo­cused on im­munother­a­pies.”

John Orloff

→ Lon­nie Moul­der’s US/Chi­na start­up Zenas Bio­Phar­ma has made John Orloff a mem­ber of the board of di­rec­tors. Orloff, the for­mer R&D chief at As­traZeneca sub Alex­ion, has changed course as a ven­ture part­ner for Agent Cap­i­tal.

→ Ex-Five Prime CFO David Smith has claimed an­oth­er board seat, this time with Son­ny Hsiao’s an­ti­body-cell con­ju­ga­tion out­fit Ace­po­dia, which has an­oth­er $109 mil­lion to work with from last month’s Se­ries C round. Smith is al­so a board mem­ber with Codex­is and Neurelis. Ace­po­dia has al­so sup­ple­ment­ed its sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board with Eliz­a­beth Smith and Richard Lopez.

John Shiv­er

→ Tak­ing its VLP “soc­cer ball” tech­nol­o­gy to Nas­daq with a nine-fig­ure IPO last sum­mer, Seat­tle’s Icosavax has made space avail­able for John Shiv­er on its board of di­rec­tors. Af­ter 22 years at Mer­ck and sev­en more at Sanofi, Shiv­er is IGM’s chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer for in­fec­tious dis­eases.

→ Cri­net­ics, which spun out its ra­dio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pipeline in­to a new com­pa­ny called Ra­dio­net­ics On­col­o­gy last fall, has named Rogério Vi­val­di to the board of di­rec­tors. Since Au­gust 2018, Vi­val­di has been pres­i­dent and CEO of Flag­ship’s Sig­ilon.

→ Lau­rence Reid, the CEO of Deci­bel Ther­a­peu­tics, is tak­ing a seat on the board of di­rec­tors of Cam­bridge, MA-based Garu­da Ther­a­peu­tics. Pri­or to tak­ing the helm of Deci­bel, Reid was an en­tre­pre­neur-in-res­i­dence at Third Rock Ven­tures and for­mer­ly CEO of Warp Dri­ve Bio. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Reid served as CBO and SVP of Al­ny­lam.

Tunde Otu­lana

→ Down in New Or­leans, Revo­lo Bio­ther­a­peu­tics — once known as Im­mune Reg­u­la­tion — has ap­point­ed ex-Mallinck­rodt CMO Tunde Otu­lana to the board of di­rec­tors. Otu­lana, the cur­rent CMO at Velox­is Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, was SVP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment & med­ical af­fairs dur­ing his time at Boehringer In­gel­heim.

→ Se­bas­t­ian Guth has been ap­point­ed to the board of di­rec­tors at New York on­col­o­gy play­er Phos­platin Ther­a­peu­tics. Guth cur­rent­ly serves as pres­i­dent of Bay­er Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals Amer­i­c­as, and sits on the boards of the Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Re­search and Man­u­fac­tur­ers of Amer­i­ca, BIO and Chil­dren’s Aid.

Jen­nifer Lew

→ RA Cap­i­tal-backed Bound­less Bio, a San Diego can­cer biotech that raked in $105 mil­lion in a Se­ries B last April, has ap­point­ed Jen­nifer Lew to its board of di­rec­tors. Lew, who cur­rent­ly serves as EVP and CFO of An­nex­on Bio­sciences, will al­so act as chair­per­son of Bound­less Bio’s au­dit com­mit­tee.

→ At the same time as pay­ing $1,452,724 in amounts owed to Nu­mus Fi­nan­cial as part of a debt set­tle­ment, Sona Nan­otech has brought on Neil Fras­er and Wal­ter Strapps to its board of di­rec­tors. Fras­er is pres­i­dent of Medtron­ic Cana­da, while Strapps most re­cent­ly served as CSO of Gem­i­ni Ther­a­peu­tics and pre­vi­ous­ly led dis­cov­ery at In­tel­lia Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ John Var­i­an has been added to the board of di­rec­tors at Acor­da, which sang a fa­mil­iar tune by slic­ing what’s left of its work­force by 15% in Sep­tem­ber. Var­i­an, the ex-CEO of XO­MA, is a board mem­ber at Am­Max Bio and Sel­l­as Life Sci­ences.

Aniz Girach

→ Paris-based Pharnext has wel­comed Elis­a­beth Svan­berg as chair­man of its board of di­rec­tors, suc­ceed­ing Michel de Rosen who will con­tin­ue to serve the com­pa­ny as non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor. Svan­berg brings with her ex­pe­ri­ence from her time at Serono, BMS and Janssen.

→ French hear­ing loss out­fit Sen­so­ri­on has tapped Aniz Girach on the shoul­der as suc­ces­sor to Jean-François Morin on its board of di­rec­tors. Girach cur­rent­ly serves as CMO of Pro­QR Ther­a­peu­tics and for­mer­ly served in the same role at Night­star Ther­a­peu­tics and Ox­u­ri­on.

→ Ideaya Bio­sciences, the com­pa­ny that picked up a $50 mil­lion IPO back in 2019 to fu­el the clin­i­cal dri­ve on syn­thet­ic lethal­i­ty, has picked up for­mer Onyx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals founder and CSO Frank Mc­Cormick as chair for its sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board.

Derek Graf al­so con­tributed to this edi­tion.