Ron Philip→ Ron Philip has stepped down as CEO at Roche’s Spark to run the show at Orbital Therapeutics, an RNA biotech tied to Beam Therapeutics that launched in April 2023 with a hefty $270 million Series A. Founding CEO and Beam president Giuseppe Ciaramella will still be connected to ARCH-backed Orbital as a scientific and strategic advisor. Meanwhile, Sylke Poehling has replaced Philip at Spark and will continue in her role at Roche as SVP and global head of therapeutic modalities.
Philip worked at Pfizer/Wyeth for 10 years before coming to Spark in 2017 as head of global commercial. He then moved up to chief commercial officer nine months after the gene therapy Luxturna was approved and would be elevated to CEO in April 2022. “Over the course of my career, I’ve pursued opportunities that have pushed the boundaries of science to bring new therapies to patients,” Philip said in a statement. “I firmly believe that Orbital’s state-of-the-art platform has the potential to expand the possibilities of RNA-based treatments, with RNA programs that precisely align with the distinct attributes needed to treat a specific disease.”
Later in the week, Orbital also said that it named Anna Dixon as SVP of human resources. She just led the HR team at Pyxis Oncology and had a five-year stint at Solid Biosciences.
Shawn Leland→ Shawn Leland is back in the saddle, this time as CEO of German cancer biotech Affimed. Andreas Harstrick will return to his CMO post after an eight-month period in which he replaced longtime leader Adi Hoess as acting CEO. Leland founded Elevation Oncology and held the top spot until January 2023. He reemerged the following August at Fore Biotherapeutics, steering the company as interim CEO until it hired former Axcella chief Bill Hinshaw in February. Affimed began this year by laying off nearly half of its workforce and shuttering research and preclinical development operations in an attempt to extend its cash runway into the second half of 2025.
Ashley Cordova→ Novocure CEO Asaf Danziger is retiring at the end of the year and will be replaced by CFO Ashley Cordova. Danziger, the CEO since 2002, will keep his seat on the board of directors and will serve in an advisory capacity “into early 2026,” Novocure said in a release. Cordova has handled various responsibilities at the Swiss biotech for the past decade and was elevated to the CFO post in September 2020. In other personnel news, Mukund Paravasthu — the current SVP of product development — will take over as COO at Novocure when Wilco Groenhuysen leaves on Oct. 1. Job cuts impacted about 200 employees last November; three months earlier, Novocure reported a Phase 3 miss with its electric fields cancer therapy in ovarian cancer.
Antony Mattessich→ Cambridge, UK-based Amphista Therapeutics has tapped Antony Mattessich as CEO. The protein degradation biotech had been hunting for a chief executive since Nicki Thompson’s departure in October 2023; former GSK exec Beverley Carr filled in as interim CEO after joining Amphista in 2021 as chief business and operating officer. Mattessich ran Ocular Therapeutix for nearly seven years until he left the company in April. “Antony’s extensive drug development and capital markets expertise are a perfect fit for Amphista as we plan to advance our lead assets into clinical development following the compelling new in vivo efficacy and CNS activity data announced this year,” chairman Joshua Brumm said in a release.
Elif Aral→ Pfizer has promoted Elif Aral to regional president for the Middle East, Russia & Africa. Aral took charge of Pfizer’s “Accord for a Healthier World” initiative as access & accord commercial lead, emerging markets in 2022, and before that, she was VP of global marketing for cardiovascular, metabolic and global brands. Aral started as a sales representative at Pfizer in 1995.
Beth Shafer→ Beth Shafer is on the move again, taking the CBO job at Scholar Rock after only five months in the same position at Voyager Therapeutics. She has extensive experience with large pharmas, leading R&D business development in gastrointestinal & inflammation, neuroscience, drug discovery sciences and externalizations for Takeda and serving as head of ophthalmology and Disease Area X business development & licensing at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Shafer also tackled the role of director, business development & licensing during her six years with Roche. Scholar Rock’s Phase 3 readout of its spinal muscular atrophy candidate apitegromab is scheduled for the fourth quarter.
Eric HallIncidentally, Voyager recently hired J&J’s Eric Hall as VP, corporate and business development, while COO Robin Swartz has added interim CBO duties.
→ Eric Olson has left Alnylam for his first CBO gig at Stoke Therapeutics. Olson had been the RNAi pioneer’s head of business development and was the head of rare disease and immunology global business development at Takeda after two years with Shire. Stoke’s share price $STOK has held steady since its 95% surge in March, when Ed Kaye’s crew revealed Phase 1/2a data for its Dravet syndrome drug STK-001, now called zorevunersen. “The landmark data announced earlier this year have generated a lot of excitement and made clear the opportunity zorevunersen presents to change the way Dravet syndrome is treated,” Olson said in a statement.
Anna Rivkin→ Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb vet Anna Rivkin has joined Foghorn Therapeutics as the CBO appointments keep rolling in. Bristol Myers promoted Rivkin to VP, business development, transactions in May after her involvement in the Karuna deal as VP of business development for immunology, neuroscience and cardiovascular disease. Foghorn’s Phase 1 trial of FHD-286 is underway for relapsed/refractory acute myelogenous leukemia in combination with decitabine or cytarabine, while the Flagship biotech gave up on the drug as a monotherapy for metastatic uveal melanoma.
Glenn Reicin→ AstraZeneca’s obesity ambitions crystallized even further when it licensed a GLP-1 receptor agonist from Eccogene, which has brought in Glenn Reicin as CFO. He comes to Eccogene at a time where the company is mulling an IPO in early 2025, according to CEO Jingye Zhou. Reicin spent nearly three years as finance chief at Alladapt Immunotherapeutics and is the ex-CFO of Sigilon Therapeutics, a Flagship company that was sold to Eli Lilly last year.
→ Bristol Myers’ CAR-T manufacturing partner Cellares has named J&J alum Justin McAnear as CFO and Jonathan Butler as general counsel, both of whom are Tesla vets. McAnear spent the last six years as CFO of 10x Genomics, and he was VP, worldwide finance and operations for Tesla from 2015-18. Butler was Tesla’s deputy general counsel and then stayed in the automotive industry as general counsel and senior advisor to the CEO at Lucid Motors.
Pol Boudes→ After picking up CBO Bharat Reddy in July, Rectify Pharmaceuticals has recruited Pol Boudes as medical chief. In August, Khurram Jamil was promoted to the CMO post that Boudes previously held at Galectin Therapeutics since March 2020. Boudes helped develop seladelpar — which just earned an FDA approval for Gilead in a liver disease called primary biliary cholangitis — as CMO of CymaBay Therapeutics from 2014-19. Rectify is studying ABC transporter dysfunction in the liver first, eventually casting a wide net throughout the body.
Sunitha Lakshminarayanan→ Sunitha Lakshminarayanan has made her way to Melinta Therapeutics as chief technology officer. Lakshminarayanan pivots to Melinta from Actinium Pharmaceuticals, where she was SVP, CMC, technical operations & supply chain. She’s also worked for Bristol Myers as executive director, cell therapy process engineering. In February, CMC issues resulted in a CRL for Melinta and Venatorx’s cefepime-taniborbactam, an antibiotic for complicated urinary tract infections.
Donald Fong→ Elsewhere, BioCryst has promoted Donald Fong to the role of CMO. Fong joined BioCryst in April as VP of the ophthalmology therapeutic area. Prior to that, Fong was with Annexon Biosciences as VP of ophthalmology clinical development. Fong’s appointment comes after BioCryst discontinued its factor D inhibitor last month.
→ Schond Greenway has returned to Peer Review as CFO of KaliVir Immunotherapeutics. We caught up with Greenway when he became CFO of MindMed in 2022 and he briefly held this role at Avalo Therapeutics, once known as Cerecor. He’s also been an investor relations leader for Mesoblast and Halozyme Therapeutics.
Jonathan Freve→ Swiss biotech Alentis Therapeutics, which is focused on its lead asset — an anti-Claudin-1 antibody called ALE.C04 — has recruited Jonathan Freve as CFO. Freve served in this role at Galecto and Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals, and led the IPO processes for both companies.
→ Heron Therapeutics has rolled out the welcome mat for Brett Fleshman as CBO. Fleshman hops aboard after a gig as managing director of NovaQuest Capital Management. Prior to that, Fleshman held roles at Veloxis Pharmaceuticals and Cornerstone Therapeutics, among others. Nearly a year ago, Heron launched a patent suit to block Mylan’s potential generic for chemo-related nausea.
Peter Ho→ Now under the direction of ex-Myovant Sciences CEO Dave Marek, ReAlta Life Sciences has enlisted Peter Ho as head of business development and corporate strategy. Ho spent the last year as the head of cell therapy business development for Ginkgo Bioworks and is the former CBO of Engine Biosciences. Earlier, he had a series of business development posts at such companies as Iovance, BeiGene and Nektar Therapeutics.
→ Perrigo, the company behind the progestin-only daily oral contraceptive Opill, has picked up Charles Atkinson as EVP, general counsel and secretary. Atkinson joins the Dublin-based company after a stint as interim general counsel for Haleon, with a combined 20-year tenure at Haleon and GSK. The new appointment comes after Perrigo announced in April that it was selling its three rare disease drug assets for $295 million.
Tim Sullivan→ San Francisco-based antibody drug developer Infinimmune has selected Tim Sullivan as CBO. Since 2021, Sullivan held this same title at Spring Discovery and is a former senior director in the external R&D innovation group at Pfizer. From 2017-20, he served as VP, business development for Arcus Biosciences. Playground Global led Infinimmune’s $12 million seed round that included contributions from Noetik CEO Ron Alfa and Strand Therapeutics chief Jacob Becraft.
Puneet Arora→ Puneet Arora has been named CMO at Skye Bioscience, a San Diego obesity biotech that uplisted to the Nasdaq in April — a move rarely seen these days in the industry. Arora turned up in Peer Review when he became medical chief at Lassen Therapeutics in November 2021, and he’s also led clinical development for Principia Biopharma. After Sanofi bought Principia for $3.7 billion in 2020, Arora stayed at the French pharma for a little while as head of clinical, inflammation and immunology.
Myoung Kim→ Annexon CEO Doug Love has hired three new leaders: Shikhar Agarwal (SVP, head of commercial) is an Amgen marketing veteran who was in charge of the Vyvgart launch in myasthenia gravis and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) as head of US marketing for argenx; Sunil Mehta (SVP of medical affairs) worked with Agarwal at argenx as head of medical affairs and had a nine-year run with Alexion; and Myoung Kim (VP of health economics and outcomes research) had been VP and head of US health economics and outcomes research, real world evidence and population health during her recent four-year tenure at Novartis.
Sabine Brookman-May→ Sabine Brookman-May is coming to Aura Biosciences as SVP, clinical development urologic oncology in October. Brookman-May has been VP, global R&D, bladder cancer development head for Janssen, now known as Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine. Although Aura does have a bladder cancer candidate, its lead program bel-sar is in a Phase 3 trial for primary choroidal melanoma.
Mike D’Ambrosio→ Contract clinical research company Parexel has enlisted Mike D’Ambrosio as SVP, global head, real world research. D’Ambrosio joins from Syneos Health, where he was VP, head of real world evidence solutions. Back in April, Parexel inked an AI partnership with Palantir.
Joe Papa→ Milestone Pharmaceuticals has elected Emergent BioSolutions CEO Joe Papa to the board of directors. The ex-Bausch + Lomb boss chairs the board at SparingVision and also sits on the board at Candel Therapeutics.
→ Longtime Eli Lilly exec Keith Johns is the latest addition to the board of directors at Allurion, the maker of an intragastric balloon to treat obesity. Johns was the head of global marketing and alliance management for Lilly’s diabetes and obesity business unit when he retired from the pharma giant in 2022. But he didn’t stay retired for long, becoming chief strategy officer at Indianapolis-based obesity biotech Adipo Therapeutics.
→ C4 Therapeutics, which has inked protein degradation deals with both Merck and Merck KGaA, has welcomed Stephen Fawell to the board of directors as Malcolm Salter retires. Fawell is a 15-year Biogen vet who led oncology discovery at AstraZeneca before his departure in June. He also had a short stint with Merck as VP, worldwide franchise discovery head, oncology.