John Robin­son

Biotech is a small world — and all the more so in a tight-knit com­mu­ni­ty like Boul­der, CO.

A serendip­i­tous re­union with An­drew Rob­bins, a for­mer col­league at Ar­ray, was what sparked John Robin­son’s jump to his new gig as CSO of Co­gent Bio­sciences.

He had start­ed fol­low­ing the com­pa­ny, a rein­car­na­tion of the trou­bled cell ther­a­py biotech Unum Ther­a­peu­tics, af­ter it tapped Rob­bins as CEO. The two had worked on mul­ti­ple projects to­geth­er at Ar­ray — as Robin­son shep­herd­ed to the clin­ic what even­tu­al­ly be­came Mek­tovi, Tukysa, Vi­t­rakvi, Retev­mo and Kosel­u­go — but part­ed ways af­ter Pfiz­er bought it for $11.4 bil­lion. Robin­son stayed on at the phar­ma gi­ant, most re­cent­ly get­ting el­e­vat­ed to VP of med­i­c­i­nal chem­istry.

Rob­bins, who’s tasked with re­build­ing Co­gent with a new fo­cus on pre­ci­sion med­i­cines, was in­ter­est­ed in set­ting up an in-house dis­cov­ery unit that could keep feed­ing in­to the pipeline. Those con­ver­sa­tions turned in­to a plan to gath­er some Ar­ray vet­er­ans and launch the Co­gent Re­search Team. There are 8 of them now, with plans to slow­ly grow to 50 over the next 3 to 4 years as Co­gent scales the phys­i­cal re­search fa­cil­i­ty.

“There are many many biotech op­por­tu­ni­ties right now,” Robin­son ad­mit­ted.

Two things about Co­gent, though, drew him in: the first is CGT9486, the KIT D816V ki­nase in­hibitor that Unum got by ac­quir­ing Kiq be­fore the brand re­fresh, which he can an­chor the dis­cov­ery group around. The oth­er? He was itch­ing to roll up his sleeves to start a re­search or­ga­ni­za­tion and ready to “build some­thing great.”

Part of the ear­ly work will in­volve team­ing up with CMO Jes­si­ca Sachs to so­lid­i­fy the da­ta around PLX9486, a key re­la­tion­ship to nav­i­gate.

“I’ve seen it op­er­ate in a cou­ple of dif­fer­ent ways,” he said. “One is sort of a siloed or­ga­ni­za­tion where you toss an as­set over the wall. I think a re­al­ly great or­ga­ni­za­tion is one in which the de­vel­op­ment or­ga­ni­za­tion and re­search or­ga­ni­za­tion has a com­mon vi­sion for which pa­tients we’re go­ing af­ter, how we’re gonna se­lect those pa­tients, and there’s no sur­pris­es.”

The mantra he will be tak­ing in­to the job echoes what many sea­soned drug hunters say: Short-term, ear­ly and fre­quent fail­ures dri­ve long-term suc­cess.

“If you think about the fastest way to de­rail or kill a com­pound or a project and you do that as ear­ly as you can in a project and you’re not emo­tion­al­ly wed­ded to that project, you can make a re­al­ly — I think a much bet­ter de­ci­sion,” he said. “It’s un­com­fort­able, though, be­cause you re­al­ly pres­sure test the sys­tem ear­ly.” — Am­ber Tong

→ An­ti-CD47 out­fit Arch On­col­o­gy has named Lau­rence Blum­berg pres­i­dent and CEO as board mem­ber af­ter ex-Ideaya Bio­sciences CMO Julie Ham­ble­ton had been lead­ing the biotech on an in­ter­im ba­sis. Blum­berg co-found­ed and was the found­ing CEO of Syn­tim­mune, which Alex­ion nabbed in Sep­tem­ber 2018 for $1.2 bil­lion. In ad­di­tion, Blum­berg co-found­ed Syn­tonix Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals (bought by Bio­gen in 2007) and was Kad­mon’s SVP, project man­age­ment. Ham­ble­ton was cho­sen as in­ter­im CEO af­ter Julie Cher­ring­ton helmed Arch On­col­o­gy from 2017-20.

John O’Brien

→ The search is over for a new leader at the Na­tion­al Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Coun­cil, with John O’Brien tak­ing on the roles of pres­i­dent and CEO at the or­ga­ni­za­tion ef­fec­tive June 1. Robert Dubois had held those ti­tles on an in­ter­im ba­sis when Dan Leonard stepped aside last Sep­tem­ber af­ter a 12-year run, and Dubois will ease back in­to his du­ties as EVP and CSO. O’Brien was se­nior ad­vi­sor to for­mer HHS Sec­re­tary Alex Azar and deputy as­sis­tant sec­re­tary of plan­ning and eval­u­a­tion (health pol­i­cy). He’s al­so been VP of pub­lic pol­i­cy for Care­First Blue­Cross BlueShield.

Er­ic Koo

→ Hill­house-backed Over­land AD­CT Bio­Phar­ma, which bands to­geth­er Over­land Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and ADC Ther­a­peu­tics in a new kind of in-li­cens­ing mod­el that our Am­ber Tong re­port­ed on in De­cem­ber, has brought on Er­ic Koo as CEO. Koo pre­vi­ous­ly led the on­col­o­gy busi­ness unit at Take­da Chi­na and di­rect­ed both the on­col­o­gy busi­ness unit and mar­ket ac­cess, ex­ter­nal af­fairs & key ac­count man­age­ment at Mer­ck Sharp and Dohme in Tai­wan. He al­so de­vot­ed 16 years to Pfiz­er in an as­sort­ment of ca­pac­i­ties rang­ing from prod­uct man­age­ment to mar­ket­ing.

Yan Zhang

→ Char­lie Sil­ver will no longer be CEO of Mis­sion Bio, the com­pa­ny he co-found­ed in 2014, mov­ing in­to an ad­vi­so­ry role as Yan Zhang steps in to pro­pel the biotech’s sin­gle-cell se­quenc­ing plat­form for­ward. Over a 10-year pe­ri­od at Ther­mo Fish­er, Zhang was gen­er­al man­ag­er of the re­pro­duc­tive health and mi­croar­ray busi­ness­es, and in Chi­na she led the ge­net­ic sci­ences and clin­i­cal next-gen­er­a­tion se­quenc­ing di­vi­sions. She’s al­so had mar­ket­ing stints at Affymetrix and Nu­GEN Tech­nolo­gies.

David David­son

→ Ge­off von Maltzahn’s gene writ­ing biotech Tessera made a loud state­ment with a hefty $230 mil­lion Se­ries B, and that same splashi­ness is car­ry­ing over as he builds his C-suite. Tessera has plucked David David­son from blue­bird bio as chief med­ical and de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer while mak­ing Hari Pu­jar COO and Lin Guey SVP of rare dis­eases pro­gram strat­e­gy and op­er­a­tions. David­son’s de­par­ture from Nick Leschly’s crew was an­nounced the same week that Be Bio turned to ex-blue­bird COO Joanne Smith-Far­rell to fill the CEO slot. Pu­jar, an 18-year Mer­ck vet who re­cent­ly be­came an op­er­at­ing part­ner at Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing, is the for­mer CTO at Spark and was Mod­er­na’s head of tech­ni­cal de­vel­op­ment and man­u­fac­tur­ing. Guey al­so spent time at Mod­er­na (se­nior di­rec­tor, rare dis­eases) and makes the leap from Xilio, where she was VP, pro­gram and port­fo­lio strat­e­gy.

→ Cyril Kon­to has left Al­lo­gene to be CMO at Glen­mark spin­off Ich­nos Sci­ences, which launched in Oc­to­ber 2019 and is de­vel­op­ing drugs for can­cer, au­to-im­mune dis­or­ders and pain. Kon­to has Big Phar­ma roots from Pfiz­er, where he was glob­al head of ear­ly im­muno-on­col­o­gy clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, and from Bris­tol My­ers Squibb. Not long af­ter Al­lo­gene snapped up Pfiz­er’s al­lo­gene­ic CAR-T port­fo­lio in 2018, Kon­to be­came Al­lo­gene’s VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, but now he’s ready for a change as David Chang los­es a key staffer to Ich­nos, helmed by Gilead alum Alessan­dro Ri­va.

Hide­ki Gar­ren

→ Res­ur­rect­ing bir­tamimab af­ter it went bust in a Phase IIb tri­al, Prothena has giv­en Hide­ki Gar­ren the nod as CMO. Gar­ren, who co-found­ed Bay­hill Ther­a­peu­tics, pi­lot­ed the Phase III pro­grams for Ocre­vus and En­spryng dur­ing his tenure as Genen­tech’s glob­al head of mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis and neu­roim­munol­o­gy. Our Nicole De­Feud­is has more on Gar­ren’s ap­point­ment here.

Lau­ren Merendi­no

→ With its June 1 PDU­FA date loom­ing and more Phase III da­ta to comb through with re­l­u­golix, My­ovant has made its biggest staff change since CEO David Marek took the ba­ton from Lynn Seely, as long­time Roche and Genen­tech vet Lau­ren Merendi­no be­comes chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer. Merendi­no had been Genen­tech’s VP, neu­ro­log­i­cal rare dis­eases, end­ing an as­so­ci­a­tion with Roche and its sub­sidiary that be­gan in the 1990s. Adele Gul­fo had been serv­ing as My­ovant’s in­ter­im CCO for the past year.

→ Like Gar­ren and Merendi­no, Howard Stern has Genen­tech ex­pe­ri­ence of his own; in his case, he was a sci­en­tist/pathol­o­gist for sev­en years there. His lat­est chap­ter is with Ram Ai­yar and At­las up­start Ko­r­ro Bio, the RNA edit­ing biotech which launched in Oc­to­ber 2019, as their CSO af­ter near­ly two years as chief sci­en­tist at Fog­Phar­ma. Stern al­so worked in trans­la­tion­al sci­ence at Juno Ther­a­peu­tics and In­fin­i­ty Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Fred­er­ic Pla

→ Fred­er­ic Pla led off Peer Re­view ex­act­ly one year ago when he signed on to be­come COO at the Park­er In­sti­tute for Can­cer Im­munother­a­py. But for Pla, an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty awaits as he takes on the COO post at spa­tial bi­ol­o­gy play­er Akoya Bio­sciences out of Marl­bor­ough, MA. Pri­or to his time at the Park­er In­sti­tute, Pla was Ge­nom­ic Health’s chief busi­ness and prod­uct de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer and lat­er its COO up through the com­pa­ny’s 2019 sale to Ex­act Sci­ences for $2.8 bil­lion.

→ End­points got more ac­quaint­ed a year ago with Howard Federoff when he cap­tained the ship at As­pen Neu­ro­science dur­ing its $70 mil­lion Se­ries A raise. He has since de­cid­ed to sign on as CEO of Brook­lyn Im­munoTher­a­peu­tics, which put the fin­ish­ing touch­es on a re­verse merg­er with NTN Buz­ztime a cou­ple weeks ago. Federoff has been a neu­rol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at UC-Irvine and is the ex-CEO of UCI Health. Brook­lyn is shoot­ing for topline re­sults of a Phase IIb tri­al of its cy­tokine-based IRX-2 for squa­mous cell can­cer of the head and neck in 2022 af­ter the suc­cess of the Phase IIa study.

An­nal­isa D’An­drea

→ Rough­ly a cou­ple months af­ter an­nounc­ing its launch, Long­wood Fund im­munol­o­gy com­pa­ny and Stephen Elledge spin­out Im­muneID has named An­nal­isa D’An­drea its pres­i­dent and CSO. D’An­drea heads to Im­muneID af­ter more than a year and a half as chief sci­en­tist at Kiniksa, and be­fore that, she was Roche’s VP and glob­al head of dis­cov­ery for im­munol­o­gy and in­flam­ma­tion. Elledge and Im­muneID’s found­ing CEO Lea Hachi­gian al­so helped launch TScan.

→ Sin­gin’ in the Rain: Richard Bryce has got­ten the call to be CMO at Rain Ther­a­peu­tics the same week that the Cal­i­for­nia on­col­o­gy play­er filed for a $100 mil­lion IPO. Pri­or to this lat­est CMO gig with Rain co-founders Robert Doe­bele and Avan­ish Vel­lan­ki, Bryce was chief med­ical and sci­en­tif­ic of­fi­cer at Puma Biotech­nol­o­gy the last four years, spend­ing nine years to­tal at the biotech. From 2008-12, Bryce was with Onyx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals as se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor of clin­i­cal sci­ence.

Véronique Ri­ethuisen

→ Sur­pass­ing its Se­ries A with a $57.6 mil­lion Se­ries B last fall, San­dra Glucks­mann-led can­cer biotech Cedil­la Ther­a­peu­tics has wel­comed Véronique Ri­ethuisen as CBO and head of fi­nance. Ri­ethuisen hails from Ipsen, serv­ing as SVP, glob­al busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and strate­gic al­liance man­age­ment. She al­so led glob­al trans­ac­tions for a year at Take­da and has al­so tak­en on M&A, BD and al­liance man­age­ment posts at Pfiz­er, Te­va, Bris­tol My­ers and Mon­san­to.

Nush­mia Khokhar

→ Janssen vet Nush­mia Khokhar has been se­lect­ed as CMO of Seat­tle in vi­vo im­munother­a­py up­start Umo­ja Bio­phar­ma, which popped the Se­ries A cham­pagne bot­tle with $53 mil­lion in fi­nanc­ing back in No­vem­ber. Khokhar, the for­mer glob­al clin­i­cal leader for Darza­lex at Janssen, had pre­vi­ous­ly been SVP, head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Au­to­lus, where she had served the past four years.

→ Speak­ing of Au­to­lus vets, Do­minic More­land has jumped on board at Oslo-based GE Health­care spin­out Ex­act Ther­a­peu­tics, the artists for­mer­ly known as Phoenix So­lu­tions, as CFO. As Au­to­lus’ VP of fi­nance, More­land guid­ed the biotech through its IPO in the sum­mer of 2018. Else­where, he found­ed and was CEO of Care­ol­o­gy — once Gen­zyme’s home­care busi­ness — and it was lat­er sold in 2010 to Med­co Health So­lu­tions.

→ Am­ryt — fo­cused on the treat­ment of rare and or­phan dis­eases — has signed on Sheila Frame as pres­i­dent Amer­i­c­as. Frame brings to the ta­ble ex­pe­ri­ence from her times at No­var­tis, Bris­tol My­ers, UCB and As­traZeneca.

Michael Faerm

→ Sev­er­al weeks re­moved from a meaty $120 mil­lion Se­ries B that fol­lowed its pact with Mer­ck and now with an S-1 filed, San Diego NK cell ther­a­py play­er Arti­va Bio­ther­a­peu­tics has re­cruit­ed Michael Faerm as CFO. Faerm’s pre­vi­ous stops have ranged from Wells Far­go (se­nior phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals eq­ui­ty re­search an­a­lyst) to Ther­a­vance (CBO). Most re­cent­ly he had his own en­ter­prise, MEF Con­sult­ing, and was in­ter­im CFO and CBO for bio­phar­ma star­tups at Burk­land As­so­ci­ates.

→ Jonathan Wang’s new im­munol­o­gy biotech, In­ma­gene, has ap­point­ed two ex­ecs with An­bo Xi­ang and Qian Xu join­ing the team. Xi­ang, In­ma­gene’s CMO (Chi­na) and SVP, op­er­a­tions, makes the move af­ter be­ing CMO (non-on­col­o­gy) for Qilu Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Group. She spent 14 years in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal R&D at GSK Japan and was a se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor for Hen­grui. Xu, him­self a for­mer se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor at Hen­grui, has Big Phar­ma cre­den­tials from Roche, Eli Lil­ly and No­var­tis.

Don­ald Wuchterl

→ Don­ald Wuchterl is on board as SVP and chief man­u­fac­tur­ing of­fi­cer at T cell re­cep­tor biotech T-knife Ther­a­peu­tics, backed by Ver­sant and RA Cap­i­tal in its $78+ mil­lion Se­ries A round. Wuchterl piv­ots to T-knife from his role as SVP, tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions & qual­i­ty for Au­dentes, where he spent five years. He’s al­so been COO at Cy­to­vance, the di­rec­tor of man­u­fac­tur­ing at Den­dreon and Shire, and the se­nior man­ag­er of man­u­fac­tur­ing at Am­gen. Wuchterl’s ap­point­ment comes af­ter the ad­di­tions of CEO Thomas Soloway and CBO / CFO Camille Lan­dis in Jan­u­ary.

→ Nat­ur­al killer-fo­cused NKGen Biotech out of San­ta Ana, CA has ush­ered in Philip Moody as CFO. Moody moved through the ranks at Ch­i­ron Cor­po­ra­tion for 11 years, even­tu­al­ly serv­ing as CFO and SVP of fi­nance and op­er­a­tions, bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals be­fore No­var­tis bought the com­pa­ny in 2006. He was al­so CFO at Pax­Vax be­fore it was pur­chased in 2018 by the now-em­bat­tled Emer­gent BioSo­lu­tions.

→ Can­cer me­tab­o­lism-based ther­a­py de­vel­op­er Tyme Tech­nolo­gies — helmed by ex-NFL kick­er Richie Cun­ning­ham — has tapped Jan Van Tornout as act­ing CMO, suc­ceed­ing Giuseppe Del Pri­ore. Be­fore found­ing B.IO.Phar­ma eCon­sult­ing, Van Tornout had brief stays as head of on­col­o­gy at Nat­era and VP of on­col­o­gy de­vel­op­ment at In­ovio. He was al­so an on­col­o­gy di­rec­tor at Bris­tol My­ers Squibb and Astel­las.

Mike Spi­garel­li

→ Psy­Bio Ther­a­peu­tics has pulled in Mike Spi­garel­li as CMO. Spi­garel­li is mak­ing a quick piv­ot to Psy­Bio af­ter tak­ing the CMO gig at Lu­men Bio­science sev­en months ago. In ad­di­tion, Spi­garel­li has served at Im­mu­cor and was chair of the Amer­i­can Board of Clin­i­cal Phar­ma­col­o­gy.

→ Click Ther­a­peu­tics has made a new round of hires with the ap­point­ments of Ran­dall Stan­icky as CFO, Lee Shapiro as a board mem­ber and Muza­m­mil Mansuri as board chair. Stan­icky is a Wall Street vet­er­an, bring­ing with him ex­pe­ri­ence from RBC Cap­i­tal Mar­kets and Gold­man Sachs.

Shapiro is man­ag­ing part­ner and co-founder at in­vest­ment firm 7wireVen­tures. His pre­vi­ous work in­cludes stints at Livon­go and Allscripts. Mean­while, Mansuri serves as a part­ner at F-Prime Cap­i­tal. Pri­or to F-Prime, Mansuri was EVP, strat­e­gy, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment, and li­cens­ing at Sanofi. In ad­di­tion, he was SVP re­search and de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Gilead.

Amie Krause

→ Amie Krause was el­e­vat­ed to SVP and chief peo­ple of­fi­cer at Atara Bio­ther­a­peu­tics ef­fec­tive April 2, as re­flect­ed on Atara’s so­cial me­dia and web­site. An 11-year Am­gen alum in tal­ent ac­qui­si­tion and hu­man re­sources, Krause has held a se­ries of posts since she joined Atara in 2016 as se­nior di­rec­tor of hu­man re­sources. In De­cem­ber, Bay­er made a move to get a win­ning hand in the CAR-T game by ink­ing a $610 mil­lion deal ($60 mil­lion of that up­front) for Atara’s as­sets that tar­get mesothe­lin.

→ Seat­tle-based Nau­tilus Biotech­nol­o­gy, which took a dip in the SPAC pool by re­verse merg­ing with Arya Sci­ences Ac­qui­si­tion Corp III in Feb­ru­ary, has cor­ralled Matt Mur­phy as gen­er­al coun­sel. Mur­phy has most no­tably served as VP, gen­er­al coun­sel at 10x Ge­nomics and as VP of in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and gen­er­al coun­sel with Pa­cif­ic Bio­sciences.

→ Durham, NC-based BioSkryb has brought on Sean Keo­hane as SVP of com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions. Keo­hane comes from nu­mares AG, where he served as VP of US mar­ket­ing and sales. Pri­or to that, Keo­hane held roles at Mol­e­c­u­lar De­vices, Ther­mo Fish­er, Qi­a­gen and Roche among oth­ers.

Lib­bie Mansell

→ Lex­eo Ther­a­peu­tics is bring­ing in Paul Mc­Cor­mac as SVP, tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions and Lib­bie Mansell as SVP and head of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs. Mc­Cor­mac comes to the New York-based com­pa­ny from Pfiz­er Rare Dis­ease, where he served as med­i­c­i­nal sci­ences cat­e­go­ry lead. Pri­or to Pfiz­er, Mc­Cor­mac was with Ave­cia. As for Mansell, she joins from AskBio, where she served as SVP, reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs. Pri­or to AskBio, Mansell was with Curis, Gen­zyme and Mil­len­ni­um Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals among oth­ers.

→ Can­del Ther­a­peu­tics has bagged Chris Ma­th­e­ny as VP, de­vel­op­ment leader. Ma­th­e­ny brings to the ta­ble near­ly two decades worth of ex­pe­ri­ence from GSK — most re­cent­ly serv­ing as as­set de­vel­op­ment leader on four sep­a­rate im­muno-on­col­o­gy pro­grams.

→ In­vest­ment firm MPM Cap­i­tal has en­list­ed David Bredt to its team of ex­ec­u­tive part­ners. Pri­or to his new role at MPM, Bredt was site head for John­son & John­son’s R&D cam­pus in La Jol­la and was al­so glob­al head of neu­ro­science dis­cov­ery at J&J. Pri­or to that, Bredt was with Eli Lil­ly as VP of in­te­gra­tive bi­ol­o­gy and, lat­er on, VP of neu­ro­science dis­cov­ery and ear­ly de­vel­op­ment.

Tom Wig­gans

→ One of sev­er­al biotechs that have braced them­selves from the fe­ro­cious NASH head­winds, CymaBay has brought on Tom Wig­gans and Janet Dor­ling to serve on the board of di­rec­tors. Wig­gans, the for­mer chair­man and CEO at Der­mi­ra, was re­cent­ly named chair­man of An­nex­on. Mean­while, Dor­ling had a fleet­ing tenure as CymaBay’s CCO and then be­came Gilead’s SVP, glob­al com­mer­cial prod­uct strat­e­gy in May 2020. Al­so, Paul Truex re­signed from the CymaBay board to take on CEO du­ties at LQT Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ A rough 2020 start­ed out as an equal­ly rough 2021 for DBV Tech­nolo­gies af­ter the peanut patch biotech sent 200 staffers pack­ing at the start of the year. DBV has nonethe­less elect­ed Tim­o­thy Mor­ris to the board of di­rec­tors as it picks up the pieces from the FDA re­jec­tion. Mor­ris, the COO and CFO for Cameron Dur­rant at Hu­mani­gen, has al­so been CFO at Io­vance and Acel­Rx.

Yi Lar­son

→ With such lu­mi­nar­ies as San­dra Horn­ing and Ian Clark al­ready on the board, Sean Bo­hen-led Ole­ma On­col­o­gy has made room for Yi Lar­son on the board of di­rec­tors as well. Lar­son just made a Peer Re­view ap­pear­ance a month ago when she ac­cept­ed the CFO post at Lian­Bio.

→ For­mer Bay­er Phar­ma CEO Di­eter Weinand has added a new board seat to his ré­sumé with his ap­point­ment to Robert Mill­man–found­ed Vesi­gen Ther­a­peu­tics. Weinand pre­vi­ous­ly served in roles at Sanofi, Pfiz­er, Bris­tol My­ers and Ot­su­ka. Weinand al­so par­tic­i­pates on the boards of Ziel­Bio and Replimune.

→ Dry eye dis­ease biotech Oys­ter Point Phar­ma has named George Eli­ades to the board of di­rec­tors. The ex-Bain part­ner has been SVP, cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment and chief trans­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer at Jazz Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals since De­cem­ber.

Ju­lia Owens

→ Liv­er and gas­troin­testi­nal dis­ease-fo­cused Metacrine has pulled in ex-Mil­len­do CEO Ju­lia Owens to its board of di­rec­tors. Cur­rent­ly, Owens serves as ex­ec­u­tive chair­per­son for the be­lea­guered biotech she co-found­ed, which merged with Tem­pest Ther­a­peu­tics in late March. Owens al­so sits on the boards of BIO and Michi­gan Bio­med­ical Ven­ture Fund.

→ Sweep­ing the leg with a nine-fig­ure IPO to fight can­cer through its Im­munoPhage plat­form, Sen­sei Bio­ther­a­peu­tics has made Jessie Eng­lish a mem­ber of the board of di­rec­tors. An ex-staffer with Pfiz­er, Mer­ck and EMD Serono, Eng­lish is cur­rent­ly CSO at Bakx Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ Pan­thera Biopart­ners has reeled in Chris Steed as non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor. Steed is the founder and man­ag­ing part­ner at Ar­gyll Part­ners and has gained ex­pe­ri­ence from his time at Arthur An­der­sen and De­loitte.

→ BioRestora­tive Ther­a­pies — fo­cused on stem cell-based ther­a­pies — has ap­point­ed Nick­o­lay Kukekov to its board of di­rec­tors. Cur­rent­ly, Kukekov is a se­nior man­ag­ing di­rec­tor at Paul­son In­vest­ment Com­pa­ny and has pre­vi­ous­ly served at High­line Re­search Ad­vi­sors, Para­mount Bio­Cap­i­tal and Rod­man and Ren­shaw.

→ Ad­vanced can­cers-fo­cused Pen­rose Ther­a­peuTx has added Mircea Ivan, David Ru­bin and Patrick Farmer to its sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board. Ivan is an as­so­ciate pro­fes­sor of med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of In­di­ana School of Med­i­cine. His re­search con­tributed to the 2019 No­bel Prize in Med­i­cine or Phys­i­ol­o­gy. Ru­bin is the Joseph B. Kirsner pro­fes­sor chair, chief of the sec­tion of gas­troen­terol­o­gy, he­pa­tol­ogy and nu­tri­tion and the co-di­rec­tor of the Di­ges­tive Dis­eases Cen­ter at UChica­go Med­i­cine. Farmer is a pro­fes­sor and chair of the de­part­ment of chem­istry and bio­chem­istry at Bay­lor Uni­ver­si­ty.

After making it through a long, painful haul to get past a CRL and on to an FDA approval last summer, little Chiasma has found a buyer.

Amryt $AMYT, a company known for its appetite for acquiring expensive drugs for rare diseases at bargain prices, snagged Chiasma and its acromegaly drug Mycapssa (octreotide) capsules in an all-stock deal — with an exchange of 0.396 shares of Amryt for every share of Chiasma.

Droves of House Democrats in Washington and members of the European Parliament have now glommed onto a major push by India and South Africa at the WTO to abolish all IP around Covid-19 vaccines.

At first blush, waiving this IP sounds like an easy win: More Covid-19 vaccines made locally for more people means more lives saved. Simple enough, especially as low-income countries have received just a tiny fraction of the world’s vaccine allotment so far.