Pe­ter Green­leaf

→ In Sep­tem­ber, Im­mune Reg­u­la­tion raked in $53.4 mil­lion in a Se­ries B for two pro­grams in rheuma­toid arthri­tis and asth­ma. This week, the British biotech has named Au­rinia CEO Pe­ter Green­leaf chair­man of the board while an­nounc­ing five ap­pointees that have joined CEO Jonathan Rig­by’s crew. Green­leaf took the reins at Au­rinia — which just yes­ter­day struck up an agree­ment with Ot­su­ka to com­mer­cial­ize vo­closporin in Japan and Eu­rope — in April 2019. He was al­so the CEO of Cere­cor and Su­cam­po Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Im­mune Reg­u­la­tion’s new CBO, Woody Bryan, was pre­vi­ous­ly the SVP of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Uro­Gen and he was with Green­leaf in the same BD ca­pac­i­ty at Su­cam­po when Mallinck­rodt bought it out in late 2017 for $1.2 bil­lion. New­ly-mint­ed COO Per­ry Calias was Cere­cor’s CSO and head of R&D, and he was al­so with Su­cam­po/Mallinck­rodt serv­ing as VP of glob­al CMC and prod­uct de­vel­op­ment. And CMO Jeff My­ers hails from Por­to­la Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, where he was SVP of glob­al med­ical af­fairs and in­ter­im CMO.

Round­ing out the band of new ex­ecs, Nan­cy Vinh (VP, clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions) is an­oth­er Por­to­la alum who led their clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions, while pre­vi­ous stops for Mary­lyn Rig­by (VP of mar­ket­ing and in­vestor re­la­tions) in­clude Unit­ed Ther­a­peu­tics and SteadyMed Ther­a­peu­tics.

Robert Cough­lin

→ Robert Cough­lin has quick­ly found a new land­ing spot af­ter leav­ing Mass­Bio as their CEO: He’s now man­ag­ing di­rec­tor for JLL’s life sci­ence in­dus­try. It’s their sec­ond ma­jor hire in the life sci­ences prac­tice in three months as Travis Mc­Cready took on the role of JLL’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor and na­tion­al prac­tice leader in Sep­tem­ber.

Cough­lin spent 13 years at Mass­Bio in a pe­ri­od of sub­stan­tial growth. His in­ter­im suc­ces­sor is Kendalle Burlin O’Con­nell, who is Mass­Bio’s COO.

→ There’s a new sher­iff in town at Liq­uidia just weeks af­ter the FDA gave them a lump of coal in the form of a CRL for their lead pul­monary ar­te­r­i­al hy­per­ten­sion drug LIQ861. Dami­an de­Goa takes over as CEO fol­low­ing the re­tire­ment of Neal Fowler af­ter 2 years as CEO of RareGen, which Liq­uidia snapped up this year. Dur­ing his tenure, RareGen col­lab­o­rat­ed with San­doz in com­mer­cial­iza­tion ef­forts for tre­pros­tinil, a Re­mod­ulin gener­ic for pul­monary ar­te­r­i­al hy­per­ten­sion (PAH).

Louise Rodi­no-Kla­pac

→ Sarep­ta is do­ing some se­ri­ous lead­er­ship re­tool­ing while their saga con­tin­ues with the FDA over the biotech’s Duchenne mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy gene ther­a­py. All the moves come from with­in: Ian Es­tepan slides in­to the CFO post af­ter serv­ing as SVP, chief of staff and cor­po­rate af­fairs; for­mer SVP of gene ther­a­py Louise Rodi­no-Kla­pac is the new CSO; Dal­lan Mur­phy rips off the in­ter­im tag and is now the per­ma­nent chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer; and Ryan Brown, who joined Sarep­ta 2 years ago, re­places the re­tir­ing Ty How­ton as in­ter­im gen­er­al coun­sel. End­points’ Ja­son Mast has more on the ap­point­ments from ear­li­er this week.

→ Af­ter say­ing good­bye to Al­ny­lam this sum­mer, Bar­ry Greene has tak­en on a new chal­lenge as CEO of Sage Ther­a­peu­tics. And what a chal­lenge it will be: Sage put 340 em­ploy­ees on the chop­ping block in April, which amount­ed to more than half of the biotech’s work­force, with the deep cuts com­ing short­ly af­ter a Phase III fail for their ex­per­i­men­tal de­pres­sion drug Sage-217. Greene, who logged 17 years at John Maraganore-led Al­ny­lam, re­places Jeff Jonas, who makes the tran­si­tion to his new role of chief in­no­va­tion of­fi­cer. Greene had been a mem­ber of Sage’s board of di­rec­tors since Oc­to­ber.

Michael Var­ney

→ Michael Var­ney is tack­ing on a new role at Jonathan Lim-led Eras­ca by join­ing the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors. Var­ney stepped in­to the com­pa­ny in Au­gust, open­ing up a new chap­ter in his ca­reer af­ter step­ping down from a high-pro­file job as head of re­search and ear­ly de­vel­op­ment at Roche’s pres­ti­gious gRED or­ga­ni­za­tion in South San Fran­cis­co. Var­ney cur­rent­ly serves as Eras­ca’s chair­man of R&D and is al­so a part of their sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board. In ad­di­tion, Var­ney is a life sci­ences se­nior ad­vi­sor at Fra­zier Health­care Part­ners.

Abid Ansari

→ Abid Ansari has de­cid­ed to step down as CFO of Durham, NC-based Pre­ci­sion Bio­Sciences to pur­sue an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty. Ansari will stick around un­til the end of the year dur­ing the tran­si­tion while Alex Kel­ly, who was just in this space a cou­ple months back when he took the chief cor­po­rate af­fairs of­fi­cer job, as­sumes the in­ter­im CFO gig in Ansari’s stead. Ansari had been with Matt Kane’s crew at Pre­ci­sion Bio­Sciences for the last 5 years. The news comes just weeks af­ter Pre­ci­sion part­nered with Eli Lil­ly on a genome edit­ing deal ap­proach­ing $2.7 bil­lion.

→ Toss­ing their lead pro­gram for an­ti-ag­ing in the waste­bas­ket and fol­low­ing that up with job cuts and re­struc­tur­ing, Uni­ty Biotech­nol­o­gy pres­i­dent Ned David is step­ping down Dec 31, while ear­ly in­vestor Bob Nelsen and David Lacey have ex­it­ed Uni­ty’s board of di­rec­tors. Con­cur­rent with these moves, they’re wav­ing in a new board mem­ber with Gilmore O’Neill, a Bio­gen vet who is Sarep­ta’s CMO and EVP of R&D. Our Max Gel­man has more de­tails.

Jean-Marc Bellemin

→ The folks at Io­vance have se­lect­ed Jean-Marc Bellemin as CFO. Be­fore mak­ing the switch to Io­vance — in a hold­ing pat­tern with a de­lay in their BLA fil­ing for li­fileu­cel, the Cal­i­for­nia biotech’s tu­mor-in­fil­trat­ing lym­pho­cyte (TIL) ther­a­py — Bellemin was CFO of Grit­stone On­col­o­gy for near­ly 3 years. Bellemin al­so spent more than 15 years in a num­ber of ca­pac­i­ties at Acte­lion, round­ing out his time there as SVP and CFO, head of fi­nance and mar­ket ac­cess un­til J&J grabbed hold of the com­pa­ny in 2017.

→ David En­loe has been named pres­i­dent and CEO of Malvern, PA-based CD­MO Re­cro, suc­ceed­ing Ger­ri Hen­wood. En­loe pre­vi­ous­ly helmed Aji­nomo­to Bio-Phar­ma Ser­vices, a CD­MO out of San Diego. Be­fore Aji Bio-Phar­ma, he led the vi­ral ther­a­peu­tics busi­ness unit at Lon­za.

Andy Kidd

→ Aptinyx may have a new lease on life with their pos­i­tive Phase II re­sults in post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der from Oc­to­ber af­ter their di­a­bet­ic pe­riph­er­al neu­ropa­thy im­plo­sion near­ly two years ago. Now Andy Kidd has added pres­i­dent to his cur­rent COO ti­tle. Kidd start­ed out as Aptinyx’s chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer in 2017 be­fore mov­ing to the COO post in March 2019. Pri­or to Aptinyx, he was with Bax­ter for a decade, even­tu­al­ly work­ing his way up to SVP of strat­e­gy and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment.

→ Ver­tex alum Sath Shuk­la has jumped on board at Spero Ther­a­peu­tics as CFO. Shuk­la makes the switch from em­bat­tled Zio­pharm On­col­o­gy — which fi­nal­ly end­ed its ac­tivist at­tack from mi­nor­i­ty in­vestor Wa­ter­Mill — where he served in the same ca­pac­i­ty. Shuk­la had a sev­en-year run at Ver­tex as their VP and glob­al head of cor­po­rate fi­nance be­fore his brief stay at Zio­pharm. Spero is de­vel­op­ing their lead can­di­date tebipen­em HBr, an oral car­bapen­em an­tibi­ot­ic, for those with com­pli­cat­ed uri­nary tract in­fec­tions and acute pyelonephri­tis.

Diego Ca­david

→ Diego Ca­david has signed on as CMO of Boston-based X4 Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals af­ter the biotech nabbed fel­low Bio­gen alum Art Taveras as CSO last month. Ca­david heads over to X4 as the com­pa­ny press­es on­ward in their Phase III tri­al of ma­vorix­afor to treat those with WHIM syn­drome. Ca­david was pre­vi­ous­ly SVP and head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Ful­crum Ther­a­peu­tics, which in Au­gust re­port­ed a Phase II dud in fa­cioscapu­lo­humer­al mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy (FSHD) with its lead drug losmapi­mod. Try­ing to put an op­ti­mistic spin on it at the time, Ca­david said, “The ini­tial ob­ser­va­tion of greater re­duc­tion by losmapi­mod over place­bo in DUX4-dri­ven gene ex­pres­sion in the biop­sied mus­cles with the high­est base­line ex­pres­sion may rep­re­sent the po­ten­tial losmapi­mod has to treat the root cause of the dis­ease.”

→ Sanofi alum Howard Surks is join­ing Car­du­ri­on Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals as the car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease biotech’s CSO and head of trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine. This year Car­du­ri­on’s C-suite has seen some turnover with Pe­ter Lawrence tak­ing the helm as CEO and Chris Mora­bito tak­ing on the role of CMO. Surks was Sanofi’s head of trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine and clin­i­cal phar­ma­col­o­gy US, and be­fore his tenure at Sanofi, he was in­volved in trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine and car­dio­vas­cu­lar clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at fel­low phar­ma gi­ant Mer­ck.

John Maxwell

→ Feel­ing the ef­fects from the FDA’s re­buff of Liber­vant — an oral film for seizure con­trol — NJ-based Aque­s­tive Ther­a­peu­tics has re­vealed John Maxwell is step­ping down from his CFO post, ef­fec­tive at the end of the year. In his place will be in­ter­im CFO Ernie Toth, who had been CFO of EHE Health. Aque­s­tive in­tends to re­file an NDA de­spite re­ceiv­ing the CRL.

Kati­na Dor­ton

→ Pro­pelled by No­vo Ven­tures and Sanofi Ven­tures in a $55 mil­lion Se­ries B round in June, NL­RP3 in­flam­ma­some-fo­cused NodThera is flesh­ing out its C-suite with Don­ald Johns as CMO and Kati­na Dor­ton as CFO. Johns, a Bio­gen and No­var­tis vet, has moved on to Nodthera af­ter be­ing CMO and EVP of med­ical and sci­en­tif­ic af­fairs at Syn­tim­mune, bought out by Alex­ion in a $1.2 bil­lion deal. Dor­ton was just here this month when she se­cured a board ap­point­ment at Pan­dion Ther­a­peu­tics, and she was pre­vi­ous­ly the CFO at Re­pare Ther­a­peu­tics, Avro­bio and Im­mat­ics.

→ Sin­ga­pore-based cell ther­a­py biotech Tes­sa Ther­a­peu­tics is putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on 2020 with an­oth­er change on the team, and this time it’s David McIn­tyre com­ing in as CFO. Tes­sa had cho­sen a new CEO (Jef­frey Buchal­ter) and new chair­man (Göran An­do) ear­li­er this year. McIn­tyre’s pre­vi­ous CFO stop was at Avi­ta Med­ical, and he’s al­so been a part­ner at Ap­ple Tree Part­ners.

Djord­je Fil­ipovic

→ Swiss au­toin­flam­ma­to­ry dis­ease biotech AB2 Bio has en­list­ed Djord­je Fil­ipovic as their chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer. Fil­ipovic held nu­mer­ous lead­er­ship ti­tles at No­var­tis, start­ing at San­doz pre-merg­er in 1992 and serv­ing near­ly three decades, end­ing his run as the phar­ma gi­ant’s glob­al head of learn­ing, phar­ma. AB2 Bio is in a piv­otal Phase III tri­al with Tadekinig al­fa, and WuXi Bi­o­log­ics is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the biotech on man­u­fac­tur­ing the drug, a re­com­bi­nant IL-18 bind­ing pro­tein.

→ Rockville, MD-based CASI Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals — which in-li­censed an an­ti-CD19 T cell ther­a­py from Chi­na’s Ju­ven­tas back in 2019 — has snagged Wei­hao Xu as CFO. Xu hails from Per­ma­nence Cap­i­tal, where he served as chief in­vest­ment of­fi­cer. Pri­or to that, he was CFO of Shang­hai-based dig­i­tal health­care com­pa­ny 111. In ad­di­tion, Xu for­mer­ly held roles at Matthews In­ter­na­tion­al Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, Permal As­set Man­age­ment and Lans­downe Part­ners.

Ter­ri Gaskell

→ UK-based Rin­ri Ther­a­peu­tics, fo­cused on hear­ing restora­tion via cell-based ther­a­pies and spun out of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Sheffield, has se­lect­ed Ter­ri Gaskell as chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer. Gaskell takes the CTO job af­ter a 7-year run at the Cell and Gene Ther­a­py Cat­a­pult, where she was most re­cent­ly their head of pro­gram de­liv­ery.

→ Re­brand­ing from its pre­vi­ous name An­a­lyt­ics 4 Life, Toron­to-based CorVista Health has locked in Scott Burg­er as chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer and VP. Burg­er has Big Phar­ma ex­pe­ri­ence as a di­rec­tor in J&J’s car­dio­vas­cu­lar group pri­or to his new po­si­tion at CorVista Health, which us­es a car­diac di­ag­nos­tic plat­form called the CorVista Sys­tem for heart dis­ease di­ag­noses.

Chris Kurtz

→ With its an­ti­fun­gal can­di­date reza­fun­gin in Phase III, San Diego biotech Cidara Ther­a­peu­tics has poached Chris Kurtz from Gilead to be their EVP of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions. Kurtz led com­mer­cial API man­u­fac­tur­ing at the phar­ma gi­ant with such drugs as Vek­lury (known more com­mon­ly as remde­sivir in the age of Covid-19) and Bik­tarvy. Be­fore Gilead, Kurtz was VP for drug de­vice in­dus­tri­al­iza­tion at Ab­b­Vie and an ex­ec at Alexza Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and No­vo Nordisk.

→ Bei­jing gene edit­ing play­er Edi­Gene, which net­ted $67 mil­lion in an Oc­to­ber Se­ries B, has made two new ap­point­ments with Bo Zhang (head of US sub­sidiary) and Ke­hua Fan (head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment). Zhang, a vet­er­an of Mer­ri­mack Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Cobalt Bio­med­i­cine, was VP at Klus Phar­ma pri­or to his Edi­Gene ar­rival. And Fan, who has Big Phar­ma stints at GSK, Sanofi and Pfiz­er un­der her belt, leaves her po­si­tion at Jun­shi Bio­sciences as head of strat­e­gy and part­ner­ship.

Erik Rut­jens

→ UK-based Enara Bio, re­brand­ed in June from its orig­i­nal name Er­vaxx and try­ing to break through in off-the-shelf CAR-T and can­cer vac­cines with their TCR dis­cov­ery and “Dark Anti­gen” plat­forms, has in­stalled Erik Rut­jens as VP, cell ther­a­py op­er­a­tions. Rut­jens comes to Enara Bio af­ter hold­ing a se­ries of ti­tles at No­var­tis, cul­mi­nat­ing in his time as head of en­abling tech­nolo­gies & process en­gi­neer­ing. Enara Bio has al­so ap­point­ed two new mem­bers of their sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board with Vor Bio­phar­ma CTO Sadik Kas­sim and Michael Quigley, Gilead’s SVP, re­search bi­ol­o­gy.

→ Wa­ter­town, MA pro­tein degra­da­tion play­er Kymera Ther­a­peu­tics, one of a mul­ti­tude of biotechs to go pub­lic in 2020 by scor­ing an up­sized $173.7 mil­lion IPO, has wel­comed two new ex­ecs with William Leong as VP of CMC and Paul Cox as VP of in­vestor re­la­tions and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Leong, a Cel­gene and Scher­ing-Plough vet, makes the move to Kymera from his gig at Com­plexa as VP, tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions. Cox has pre­vi­ous­ly been in in­vestor re­la­tions at Sage Ther­a­peu­tics, Neon Ther­a­peu­tics and Voy­ager Ther­a­peu­tics.

Badred­din Edris

→ Spring­Works Ther­a­peu­tics — which swapped an ex-Pfiz­er drug out with Jazz Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals for $35 mil­lion back in Oc­to­ber — has an­nounced two pro­mo­tions. Cur­rent CBO Badred­din Edris has moved up to the po­si­tion of COO, while L Mary Smith, cur­rent SVP of clin­i­cal re­search and de­vel­op­ment, has been pro­mot­ed to chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer. Edris joined the com­pa­ny back in 2018 and pre­vi­ous­ly held roles at two Or­biMed port­fo­lio com­pa­nies: CBO at Sil­ver­back Ther­a­peu­tics and COO at Edge­wise Ther­a­peu­tics. Smith has been with the com­pa­ny since its in­cep­tion in 2017 and for­mer­ly served as EVP of gene ther­a­py at Pfiz­er sub­sidiary Bam­boo Ther­a­peu­tics and as VP of prod­uct de­vel­op­ment at Unit­ed Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ Af­ter quite the ug­ly bat­tle, Zio­pharm‘s saga with Wa­ter­Mill has fi­nal­ly drawn to a close. Zio­pharm has made the ad­di­tions of Jaime Vieser and Hol­ger Weis to its board of di­rec­tors, with chair­man Scott Tar­riff hit­ting the ex­it. It’s not clear if Wa­ter­Mill will push for the last in­di­vid­ual to step down and be re­placed with Wa­ter­Mill founder Robert Post­ma. Weis was the for­mer pres­i­dent of De­meRx while Vieser is co-founder and chief in­vest­ment of­fi­cer of Cas­tle Hill As­set Man­age­ment.

Jen­nifer Hon­ey­cutt

→ Jen­nifer Hon­ey­cutt start­ed at Dana­her 21 years ago af­ter the Hach ac­qui­si­tion. Now she’ll take on a new role as EVP, ef­fec­tive Jan 1. Hon­ey­cutt had been VP and group ex­ec­u­tive over­see­ing three en­ti­ties: Pall (which Dana­her pur­chased in 2015, earn­ing her the ti­tle of pres­i­dent of Pall), IDT and Dana­her’s Life Sci­ences plat­form in Chi­na.

→ Karyopharm Ther­a­peu­tics — which won an FDA OK last year for its mul­ti­ple myelo­ma drug de­spite fevered ob­jec­tions — has pulled in Michael Mano as SVP, gen­er­al coun­sel. Mano joins the com­pa­ny af­ter a stint as coun­sel, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Bio­gen.

Lin­da Holm­ström

→ Stock­holm phar­ma On­copep­tides, now helmed by ex-Toca­gen CEO Mar­ty Du­vall, has wel­comed Lin­da Holm­ström as di­rec­tor of in­vestor re­la­tions. Holm­ström, who worked in com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Re­ci­pharm, joins hema­to­log­i­cal dis­ease-fo­cused On­copep­tides af­ter four years as se­nior cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions and in­vestor re­la­tions man­ag­er for So­bi.

→ UK-based Touch­light — fo­cused on the de­vel­op­ment of DNA-based ge­net­ic med­i­cines — has tapped Satish Muchakay­ala as di­rec­tor of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs. Muchakay­ala brings to the ta­ble ex­pe­ri­ence from his time at UCB, J&J and GSK. In ad­di­tion, the com­pa­ny has brought on John Dwyer, for­mer part­ner at PwC UK, to its board of di­rec­tors as non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor.

Camille Bedrosian

→ Boston-based Rhythm Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, led by David Meek­er and weeks re­moved from get­ting the FDA seal of ap­proval on set­melan­otide for rare ge­net­ic dis­or­ders of obe­si­ty, has hit two new notes on the board of di­rec­tors with Camille Bedrosian and Lynn Tetrault. Bedrosian has been CMO at Ul­tragenyx since 2018, and Tetrault was in cor­po­rate af­fairs at As­traZeneca from 1993-2014.

→ Dutch macro­mol­e­cule biotech Sapreme has tapped Björn Cochlovius to be chair­man of the board. Cochlovius, who al­so chairs the board at Iso­geni­ca, has worked in busi­ness de­vel­op­ment for Ab­b­Vie and Roche.

Kel­ly Ro­mano

→ Rais­ing $204 mil­lion in an up­sized IPO this fall and tar­get­ing Alzheimer’s and Parkin­son’s, Leen Kawas-helmed Athi­ra Phar­ma out of Seat­tle has added Kel­ly Ro­mano to their board of di­rec­tors. Ro­mano is the founder and CEO of BlueRip­ple Cap­i­tal and spent more than three decades at Unit­ed Tech­nolo­gies Corp.

→ Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy play­er XW­Phar­ma has reeled in Michael Mor­ris­sey to its board of di­rec­tors. Mor­ris­sey is the cur­rent di­rec­tor, pres­i­dent and CEO of Ex­elix­is.

→ Just af­ter they hired Steve Harbin as COO and chief of staff, Cam­bridge, MA vi­ral im­munother­a­py out­fit On­corus has made Scott Canute a mem­ber of the board of di­rec­tors. Canute, the for­mer man­u­fac­tur­ing ex­ec at Eli Lil­ly and Gen­zyme, is al­so on the board at Flex­ion Ther­a­peu­tics.

Al­bert Cha

→ As­cendis Phar­ma A/S SVP and chief le­gal of­fi­cer Michael Wolf Jensen won’t put him­self up for re-elec­tion to the board of di­rec­tors, while Al­bert Cha has re­placed him at the Copen­hagen-based com­pa­ny as chair­man. Cha, a Vi­vo Cap­i­tal vet and board mem­ber for the last six years, is al­so on the board KalVista Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Jensen had been chair­man since 2008.

→ Sandip Ka­pa­dia has been ap­point­ed to the board of di­rec­tors at Lu­ca Santarel­li start­up Vec­tivBio. Ka­pa­dia, the CFO at In­ter­cept, held sev­er­al po­si­tions at No­var­tis, in­clud­ing CFO of San­doz in North Amer­i­ca.

An­drea Hes­lin Smi­ley

→ Set­tling in with a new CEO af­ter the Robert Chioi­ni dra­ma, Rock­well Med­ical has brought in Eli Lil­ly vet An­drea Hes­lin Smi­ley as a board mem­ber. Smi­ley has been pres­i­dent and CEO at VMS Bio­Mar­ket­ing for nine years.

→ Spec­trum Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals — which saw its shares crater last De­cem­ber — has re­cruit­ed No­ra Bren­nan to its board of di­rec­tors. Bren­nan cur­rent­ly serves as CFO of TELA Bio and has pre­vi­ous­ly served as CFO at Xeris Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Jef­frey Vacir­ca

→ Be­yond­Spring, a can­cer-fo­cused biotech with deep roots in Chi­na, has named Jef­frey Vacir­ca a mem­ber of its board of di­rec­tors. Vacir­ca comes from New York Can­cer & Blood Spe­cial­ists, where he serves as CEO and chair­man. In ad­di­tion, he sits on the boards of OneOn­col­o­gy, the Amer­i­can Red Cross of Greater New York, New York Can­cer Foun­da­tion, Odonate Ther­a­peu­tics and Spec­trum Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ SAB Bio­ther­a­peu­tics has ap­point­ed Mani Mo­hin­dru and Mer­ck vet Mervyn Turn­er to its board of di­rec­tors. Mo­hin­dru was the for­mer CFO of CereX­is and was CFO and chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer at Cara Ther­a­peu­tics. Mean­while, Turn­er cur­rent­ly op­er­ates his own con­sult­ing firm, MJ Turn­er Con­sult­ing.

Michel Thérin

→ Medtech Tis­si­um has pulled in Michel Thérin to its board of di­rec­tors. Cur­rent­ly, Thérin is pres­i­dent of ad­vanced ther­a­pies at Siemens Health­i­neers. Pri­or to that, he spent more than a decade at Medtron­ic.

→ Man­u­fac­tur­ing tech com­pa­ny Ori Biotech has reeled in Mor­rie Ruf­fin, Jian Irish and Dean­na Pe­tersen to its ad­vi­so­ry board. In ad­di­tion, the com­pa­ny has made sev­er­al new ap­point­ments with the hir­ing of David Smith as VP of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions; Shaun Mans­field as sci­en­tist; and Amisha Pa­tel as qual­i­ty man­ag­er.

→ Is­rael-based MeMed has wel­comed Chris Hi­b­berd to its board of di­rec­tors. Cur­rent­ly, Hi­b­berd serves as CEO and ex­ec­u­tive chair­man of Nu­cle­ix.