→ Eli Lilly has joined the club of pharma companies that have lined up AI execs. Thomas Fuchs will be Lilly’s first-ever chief AI officer on Oct. 21 and comes from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he was the dean and department chair for the Windreich Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health. Lilly was in an AI state of mind this week, striking a deal with Daphne Koller’s crew at insitro. “In this new era of technology, the potential for artificial intelligence and machine learning to revolutionize health care is immense,” chief information and digital officer Diogo Rau said in a statement. “Dr. Fuchs will contribute to Lilly’s breakthroughs in AI, aiding in the discovery and development of new medicines while enhancing patient outcomes.”
Back in August, Amgen hired Nike’s Sean Bruich as SVP of artificial intelligence and data not long after Pfizer made a move of its own by appointing Berta Rodriguez-Hervas as chief AI and analytics officer.
→ Pfizer is making plenty of headlines this week with activist investor Starboard Value’s $1 billion stake, but there’s personnel news at the pharma giant as well: John McGinley has succeeded Susan Rienow as UK managing director and country president. McGinley is a 13-year Pfizer veteran who had been the company’s UK primary care lead before taking on these new responsibilities. You may recall that Rienow took over as global chief marketing officer in July after Drew Panayiotou’s departure.
Two former Pfizer leaders, Ian Read and Frank D’Amelio, had expressed interest in assisting Starboard Value, only to do a 180 and throw their support behind CEO Albert Bourla — presumably under pressure, according to a letter sent by Starboard to Pfizer’s board of directors.
→ Josh Distler has been promoted to CEO at Oak Hill Bio, a Takeda spinout that debuted in February 2022 and joined forces with Chiesi on its lead drug OHB-607 for premature birth complications. Oak Hill also promoted Ike Greenstein to CBO and named Sharon Morriss as COO. Distler co-founded Oak Hill with Greenstein and they worked together at hedge fund manager Athanor Capital, where Distler was head of crossover and quantitative equity, and Greenstein was senior equity analyst. Morriss is a Shire alum who recently led clinical development for Apellis and Lung Therapeutics. Oak Hill has also appointed Takeda Ventures partner Jiaping Gu, Immunocore immunology research exec Hussein Al-Mossawi, and Zura Bio legal chief Kim Davis to the board of directors.
→ Since his departure from Alnylam, John Maraganore has been busy, taking on a number of advisory roles and working at VC firms such as ARCH and Atlas Venture. It’s no surprise, then, that Maraganore is now leading the charge at City Therapeutics as executive chair. City launched this week with $135 million with plans to develop a pipeline of next-generation RNAi therapies.
→ Philippe Sauvage has left Sanofi to become CFO of Nuvation Bio, which revealed data at ESMO for its ROS1 inhibitor taletrectinib — a Phase 2 drug from the AnHeart Therapeutics buyout. Sauvage had been with Sanofi since 2012 and was the French pharma’s global head of operations and access. He’s also the former North American CFO at Sanofi from 2017-19. Ex-finance chief Jennifer Fox resigned from Nuvation Bio last November and is currently CBO and CFO at Nasdaq newcomer Zenas BioPharma.
→ Flagship Pioneering has welcomed Paul Parker as managing partner, capital solutions and value realization. Parker had leadership roles with Lehman Brothers, Barclays and Goldman Sachs before jumping to Thermo Fisher as SVP, head of strategy and corporate development. Doug Cole and Stephen Berenson are the other managing partners at Flagship, the indefatigable biotech incubator that keeps pumping out new companies and now has $3.6 billion more to do so.
→ Cancer biotech KSQ Therapeutics has selected Anna Truppel-Hartmann as CMO. Truppel-Hartmann helped develop the CAR-T therapy Abecma and was promoted to CMO at 2seventy bio in April. For a good portion of her career with Roche, she was head of patient engagement before joining bluebird bio as VP, clinical development and medical affairs oncology. KSQ is partnering with Roche on the USP1 inhibitor KSQ-4279 and has other programs in-house, including KSQ-001EX and KSQ-004EX for solid tumors.
→ Lots of CEO changes in Europe this week: First, Paris-based biotech Oncovita brought on Stéphane Altaba to steer the ship. Altaba joins the team with experience from his time at Sanofi and Nordic Pharma, among others. Meanwhile, in Germany, Abalos Therapeutics named Gerben Moolhuizen as chief executive. Moolhuizen served in the same role at ISA Pharmaceuticals and was also the company’s CBO. Finally, over in Norway, Calluna Pharma locked in Mark Gaffney (former CBO and COO of Vedere Bio) as CEO, taking over for John Montana, who’s been serving in the interim and will now be returning to his role as operating partner at Forbion. In addition, Calluna has recruited AM-Pharma chair Mark Altmeyer as chairman of the board, succeeding Forbion’s general partner Marco Boorsma.
→ CRO Syneos Health has brought aboard Costa Panagos as CEO. Panagos’ predecessor, Colin Shannon, took the helm last year and has been named executive chairman. Panagos joins the team after a 25-year gig with IQVIA, culminating in his role as president, research & development solutions. Elliott Investment Management, Jim Momtazee’s Patient Square Capital and Veritas Capital officially took Syneos private just before Shannon replaced Michelle Keefe as CEO.
→ Black Diamond Therapeutics CBO/CFO Fang Ni and chief people officer Elizabeth Montgomery are on the chopping block in a reorg that will further reduce its workforce. Black Diamond will seek a partner for BDTX-4933 in RAF/RAS-mutant solid tumors and move forward with BDTX-1535, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor for relapsed/refractory EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer. The biotech revealed Phase 2 data for BDTX-1535 in late September.
→ While Walgreens is working on righting the ship through the revival of its retail pharmacy business, the chain announced the appointments of Jason Stenta as chief commercial officer and Ramita Tandon as chief biopharma services officer. Stenta hops aboard from UnitedHealth Group’s Optum, where he was SVP, payer sales. Before that, he spent a decade at CVS Health. Meanwhile, Tandon previously served as Walgreens’ chief clinical trials officer, where she worked on driving growth for the company’s clinical trials business. Tandon joined Walgreens after a stint as COO of Trio Health.
→ Nadeem Mirza is no longer the CMO at Aprea Therapeutics after taking the job in May, and the biotech has brought in Philippe Pultar as senior medical advisor to help develop its WEE1 inhibitor APR-1051. Pultar is familiar with the space after leading clinical development at Zentalis Pharmaceuticals, which is testing its WEE1 inhibitor azenosertib as a monotherapy and in combinations.
→ Wellcome Sanger Institute spinout Mosaic Therapeutics has tapped Barry Davies as CSO. Davies had a 19-year career at AstraZeneca that culminated in his role as senior director, global project leader for drug discovery and early development projects ranging from PROTACs to antibody-drug conjugates. In April 2023, Endpoints News exclusively reported about Mosaic’s $28 million Series A from Syncona and Cambridge Innovation Capital.
→ Curve Therapeutics is back in Peer Review for the second consecutive week, this time with Rab Prinjha as R&D chief. Prinjha ends a 27-year run with GSK, where he had been head of the immunology research unit since May 2021. Curve, a UK biotech that pulled together a $51.4 million Series A in February, introduced its new chairman Andre Hoekema last week, along with business development leader Cora Griffin.
→ Optinose has recruited Terry Kohler as CFO. The Endo vet had held this position at Verrica Pharmaceuticals, which said last week that it’s undergoing a commercial reorg and laying off employees “in certain support functions.” Earlier this year, the FDA expanded the label for Optinose’s nasal spray Xhance to treat adults with chronic rhinosinusitis without nasal polyps.
→ Another ex-Verrica finance chief and Endo alum, Chris Degnan, has replaced Don Kim as CFO of UroGen. Degnan spent a decade with AstraZeneca in various finance roles and was CFO at recently-shuttered Galera for nearly five years.
→ Now led by ex-Karuna Therapeutics chief Bill Meury and competing with J&J’s Xarelto with its blood thinner abelacimab, Anthos Therapeutics has enlisted Mia Kelley as general counsel and Laurel Ostrom as chief human resources officer. Kelley worked with Meury at Karuna and was elevated to general counsel before the neuro biotech closed its $14 billion sale to Bristol Myers Squibb. She had a four-year stint as VP, corporate counsel at PureTech, which founded Karuna in 2009. Ostrom, a Shire/Takeda HR vet, tackled the role of VP, human resources, CMC for Moderna at the height of its Covid-19 vaccine production.
→ As Opthea prepares for a Phase 3 readout in wet age-related macular degeneration, it’s made a trio of appointments: Parisa Zamiri as CMO, Tom Reilly as CFO and Anand Sundaram as VP, marketing. Zamiri brings experience from Novartis and Complement Therapeutics. Meanwhile, Reilly previously served at Amarin and Cara Therapeutics, and Sundaram joins after stints at Astellas and Novartis.
→ Phase 1 trials are in progress for a breast cancer vaccine and a CAR-T therapy for ovarian cancer at Anixa Biosciences, a San Jose, CA-based company that has named Suyasha Gupta as senior director of clinical development. Gupta worked on cancer blockbuster Tecentriq and mosunetuzumab (now marketed as Lunsumio) as lead clinical scientist at Genentech. She has experience outside oncology with the eye disease treatment Vabysmo and the Alzheimer’s drug beset by clinical failures, gantenerumab.
→ Roee Shahar has reunited with Clay Siegall as EVP, commercial at Immunome. Shahar was Siegall’s franchise lead for hematology and cervical cancer at Seagen and then oversaw the entire hematology portfolio for Pfizer after it bought the ADC maker for $43 billion.
→ As Endpoints reported on Monday, EcoR1 Capital founder and portfolio manager Oleg Nodelman has replaced J&J alum Dan Baker on the board of directors at Galapagos. EcoR1 owns nearly 10% of the Belgian biotech’s shares.
→ Former Escient Pharmaceuticals CEO Joshua Grass is now chairman of the board at rare disease biotech Glycomine. Escient was purchased by Incyte in April, but that isn’t the only acquisition on Grass’ résumé. He also launched Modis Therapeutics and sold it to Zogenix, 10 months after its Series A round.
→ Inozyme has added Erik Harris to the board of directors, which is chaired by CEO Doug Treco. Harris has been chief commercial officer for Ultragenyx since 2019 and also has a board seat at Denali Therapeutics.
→ Frank Poschen is taking Christoph Bertram’s place on the board of directors at Bayer’s Vividion Therapeutics. Poschen just started a new position at Bayer as SVP of global HR pharmaceuticals after six years as head of global HR business partnering for pharma R&D.