Ru­bius snaps up No­var­tis vet Pablo Cagnoni as CEO; MiMedx dumps two ex­ecs fol­low­ing in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion

→ David Ep­stein has re­cruit­ed an­oth­er fel­low No­var­tis vet to Ru­bius Ther­a­peu­tics, the cell ther­a­py start­up that he’s chair­ing — this time straight to the top job. New CEO Pablo Cagnoni joins Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing part­ner Tor­ben Straight Nis­sen, who’s been lead­ing the com­pa­ny as pres­i­dent. The Cam­bridge, MA-based com­pa­ny be­lieves it can en­gi­neer red blood cells to trans­port pro­teins, in­stead of oxy­gen, need­ed to fight dis­eases. The ap­pli­ca­tions span from can­cer — which Cagnoni is in­ti­mate­ly fa­mil­iar with, first as an on­col­o­gist and then as an ex­ec at No­var­tis on­col­o­gy and Onyx Phar­ma — to au­toim­mune and rare dis­eases. With a pre­clin­i­cal biotech that’s eye­ing a whole new class of ther­a­pies, Cagnoni has his work cut out for him, but thanks to a re­cent­ly com­plet­ed mega-round, he al­so has $220 mil­lion in the bank to help.

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