Sunao Man­abe

→ Bare­ly a day af­ter Dai­ichi Sankyo wrapped a mam­moth col­lab­o­ra­tion deal with As­traZeneca, the Japan­ese phar­ma an­nounced a suc­ces­sion plan for its CEO. George Nakaya­ma, who’s keep­ing his chair­man seat, is pass­ing the reins to Sunao Man­abe, cur­rent­ly pres­i­dent and COO. This marks one of the fi­nal tran­si­tions as Nakaya­ma winds down his decades-long ca­reer run with the com­pa­ny, start­ing at Dai­ichi sub­sidiary Sun­to­ry in 1979. He del­e­gat­ed the pres­i­dent role two years ago.

→ Celyad, the Bel­gian biotech now mak­ing a low-pro­file run for off-the-shelf CAR-T suc­cess along­side more promi­nent peers like Cel­lec­tis, Servi­er and Al­lo­gene, has pro­mot­ed CFO Fil­ip­po Pet­ti to CEO. He re­places Chris­t­ian Hom­sy, who’s step­ping aside to a non-ex­ec­u­tive, sup­port­ing role af­ter lead­ing the com­pa­ny through a tran­si­tion from stem cell ther­a­py for the heart to im­muno-on­col­o­gy dur­ing his 12-year tenure.

→ Palm Beach Gar­dens, Flori­da-based Xcov­ery has tapped two Big Phar­ma vets for top posts at its on­col­o­gy op­er­a­tion. Li Mao, a long time aca­d­e­m­ic, is tak­ing the helm af­ter a stint as head of the John­son & John­son Chi­na Lung Can­cer Cen­ter. Gio­van­ni Sel­vag­gi, who’s served roles at Glax­o­SmithK­line, No­var­tis and Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb in the past nine years, joins as CMO. To­geth­er, they will steer de­vel­op­ment of en­sar­tinib and vorolanib, Phase III and Phase I/II drugs for ALK-pos­i­tive non-small cell lung can­cer and tho­racic can­cer, re­spec­tive­ly — both in­di­ca­tions that Sel­vag­gi be­came fa­mil­iar with over the course of both his med­ical and in­dus­try ca­reers.

Willem Scheele

→ As Imara gets up to full speed with its mid-stage pro­gram for sick­le cell dis­ease, the biotech has wooed Pfiz­er’s rare dis­ease head to be its per­ma­nent CMO. Hav­ing scored a $63 mil­lion round co-led by Ar­ix and Or­biMed just days ago, the Cam­bridge, MA-based biotech is an­tic­i­pat­ing some da­ta on its ex­per­i­men­tal med IMR-687, a phos­pho­di­esterase-9 in­hibitor, by June. Scheele re­places Shi Yin Foo, an ex­ec of the or­phan drug ac­cel­er­a­tor Cy­dan who was help­ing out on an in­ter­im ba­sis.

→ Rekha Hem­ra­jani is join­ing Ar­cus Bio­sciences $RCUS as chief op­er­at­ing and fi­nan­cial of­fi­cer, a role that com­bines her ex­pe­ri­ence at FLX Bio and 3-V Bio­sciences. The biotech, led by Ter­ry Rosen’s crew at Flexus, is busy eval­u­at­ing sev­er­al Phase I read­outs for its slate of can­cer drugs: AB928, a dual A2a/A2b re­cep­tor an­tag­o­nist; AB154, an an­ti-TIG­IT an­ti­body, and AB680, a small-mol­e­cule CD73 in­hibitor.

→ Shree­r­am Arad­hye has fol­lowed his old col­league Bill Hin­shaw out No­var­tis’ doors and in­to Ax­cel­la’s C-suite. As EVP and chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer, Arad­hye will steer the Flag­ship-found­ed biotech’s non-IND clin­i­cal stud­ies fo­cused on re­pro­gram­ming me­tab­o­lism with en­doge­nous meta­bol­ic mod­u­la­tors. Karen Lewis, Bio­gen’s for­mer head of hu­man re­sources, has al­so come on board in a sim­i­lar role.

→ Af­ter work­ing with Abing­worth on a num­ber of co-in­vest­ments (in­clud­ing Wil­son Ther­a­peu­tics and Val­ne­va) as a se­nior part­ner at MVM Part­ners, Bali Mu­ralid­har is join­ing Tim Haines’ promi­nent biotech fund. He will be­come part of a glob­al team spread be­tween Lon­don, Boston and Men­lo Park that iden­ti­fies new in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and sup­ports star­tups in the ex­ist­ing port­fo­lio.

→ Turn­ing Point Ther­a­peu­tics has hired ex­pe­ri­enced health­care com­mu­ni­ca­tor Jim Maz­zo­la to lead cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions and in­vestor re­la­tions as it preps its lead ki­nase in­hibitor for a Phase II tri­al in the sec­ond half of the year.

→ In Abzena’s lat­est ef­fort to beef up its man­age­ment team, the bi­o­log­ics con­tract re­search or­ga­ni­za­tion is ap­point­ing Camp­bell Bunce and Bo Adair to the new po­si­tions of CSO and SVP process and op­er­a­tions. Bunce will keep his oth­er role as the head of Abzena’s Cam­bridge, UK, which he’s filled since 2015. Adair, on the oth­er hand, comes from a reg­u­lar con­sult­ing gig fol­low­ing a re­cent job at Ap­tu­it.

→ Wind­MIL Ther­a­peu­tics has tapped San­jin Zvonić, a sea­soned ex­ec who most re­cent­ly led Prog­en­i­tor Cell Ther­a­py’s in­te­gra­tion in­to Hi­tachi, to lead its process­es and man­u­fac­tur­ing.   

“At Wind­MIL, we’re al­ways look­ing to the fu­ture of can­cer im­munother­a­py, so San­jin’s abil­i­ty to bridge re­search and man­u­fac­tur­ing makes him an ide­al fit for us as we de­liv­er both the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion of MILs and look to­ward de­vel­op­ing the next gen­er­a­tion,” in­ter­im CEO Don Hay­den said, re­fer­ring to the Bal­ti­more biotech’s mar­row-in­fil­trat­ing lym­pho­cytes tech­nol­o­gy.

→ On the heels of a sec­ond glau­co­ma drug ap­proval, Aerie Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals $AERI has  re­cruit­ed An­gela Jus­tice (for­mer­ly of Sun Phar­ma) as west­ern re­gion­al di­rec­tor, med­ical sci­ence li­ai­son, and Bri­an Saku­ra­da (for­mer­ly of Intar­cia Ther­a­peu­tics) as di­rec­tor of sci­en­tif­ic mar­ket ac­cess. Con­cur­rent­ly, No­var­tis alum David El­lis is join­ing as di­rec­tor of chem­istry while  Karis­ma Shar­ma has been named VP, hu­man re­sources.

→ Af­ter try­ing out re­search and ear­ly de­vel­op­ment at Roche and No­var­tis, Shao­lian Zhou has re­turned to the CRO world. He is now the SVP and lab di­rec­tor for bio­an­a­lyt­i­cal ser­vices at World­wide Clin­i­cal Tri­als, re­spon­si­ble for the over­all op­er­a­tions of the lab fa­cil­i­ty in Austin.

→ As In­tra-Cel­lu­lar Ther­a­pies plots a turn­around and quick launch for its schiz­o­phre­nia drug lu­mate­per­one, it has ap­point­ed Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb vet John Bar­di to spear­head mar­ket ac­cess, pol­i­cy and gov­ern­ment af­fairs. Bar­di jumps to the New York-based biotech $IT­CI from Ot­su­ka, where he played a sim­i­lar role in bring­ing the an­tipsy­chot­ic Abil­i­fy to mar­ket.

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

US regulators cleared an ultra-rare drug from Pharming Group, by way of Novartis, on Friday afternoon.

The Dutch biotech said the FDA greenlit leniolisib for an immunodeficiency disease known as activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta (PI3Kδ) syndrome, or APDS. People 12 years and older can receive the oral drug, to be marketed as Joenja, beginning early next month, Pharming said, five days ahead of the decision deadline set by the FDA as part of a priority review.

A California judge will allow a plaintiff in a state court case to introduce expert testimony connecting a potential carcinogen in former blockbuster medicine Zantac to cancer.

The order was handed down on Thursday from state judge Evelio Grillo, who is now allowing both parties to introduce expert testimony in an upcoming trial after what’s known as a Sargon hearing, where a judge determines the admissibility of expert witnesses and expert opinions.