Biopharma and life sciences organizations strengthen their leadership teams and board with these Movers & Shakers.
180 Life Sciences — Russell T. Ray and Teresa DeLuca were appointed to the board of directors of 180 Life Sciences. Ray was formerly Managing Director and co-Head of Global Health Care at Credit Suisse First Boston Corporation. More recently, Ray was a Partner and Senior Advisor to HLM Venture Partners, a health care-focused venture capital firm. He currently serves on the board of directors of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc. DeLuca comes to 180 Life Sciences as both a public independent board director and former senior executive Chief Medical Officer. Her most recent role was at Columbia University as Managing Director of NY Life Science Venture Fund.
Relief Therapeutics — Taneli Jouhikainen was tapped for the newly-appointed position of chief operating officer. The position was created to stay abreast with Relief’s strategic transition from a clinical-stage company to a diversified, fully integrated product-driven entity. Jouhikainen will oversee all internal product development and intellectual property activities and will be an important contributor to the company’s growth strategy. Jouhikainen joins Relief from Savara where he was co-founder, president & COO. Prior to this, he served at Akela Pharma Inc., first as Head of Corporate Development and subsequently as CEO until the company’s merger with Nventa Biopharmaceuticals.
Guerbet – Marc Massiot was appointed director of the company for a six-year term. Massiot is founder and manager of Enaxante, a business advisory and training firm operating in the field of healthcare, as well as Espace Santé Saint-Bernard, a physiotherapy and osteopathy practice.
Evelo Biosciences – Mark Plinio was named chief commercial officer. Plinio joins Evelo from Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, where he served as CCO and Senior Vice President, Marketing and Sales. Prior to Ironwood, Plinio spent nearly two decades at Novartis Pharmaceuticals in roles of increasing responsibility in Legal, Marketing, and Sales, including serving as Head of Dermatology and Rheumatology Marketing. Prior to Novartis, Plinio worked as an associate attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP and at Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon, LLP.
Nuvation Bio – David C. Hanley was named chief technical operations officer. Hanley will oversee all early- and late-stage pharmaceutical development and operations, including supply chain, product development and manufacturing efforts, and work closely on commercial planning with Quality, Regulatory Affairs, Clinical Development and Clinical Operations teams. Hanley most recently served as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Pharmaceutical Development and Operations at BioXcel Therapeutics. Prior, Dr. Hanley held positions at Radius Health, Inc., including Vice President of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technical Operations. Hanley also held leadership positions at The Medicines Company, Medarex and Berlex.
NEXGEL, Inc. — Adam Drapczuk was named chief financial officer. Prior to joining NEXGEL, Drapczuk served as Financial Controller for R-Pharm US. He also served as Vice President of Finance, CFO, for Inpellis, Inc.; Controller and Director of Finance for Tris Pharma; and Director of Finance for West-Ward Pharmaceuticals Corp.
Ambys Medicines – Ronald Park was named chief executive officer of Ambys. Prior to Ambys, he was EVP and General Manager for Health and DNA at Ancestry and held multiple roles at Roche and Genentech, including co-Global Head and VP for Roche’s Personalized Healthcare Center of Excellence, General Manager for Denmark and Iceland, and Global Lifecycle Leader for Actemra. Earlier in his career, Park worked for McKinsey & Company.
Argenx– Netherlands-based argnex tapped Karl Gubitz as CFO. He will succeed Eric Castaldi, who will remain with the company through June 30. Gubitz has nearly 20 years of experience as a senior finance professional in the pharmaceutical industry at Pfizer, where he most recently served as Vice President of Finance within the Global Oncology business. Prior to joining Pfizer in 2003, Gubitz held various management roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Opthea Limited – Julia Haller and Judith Robertson were appointed as independent Non-Executive Directors to the Opthea Board of Directors. Haller currently serves as Ophthalmologist-in-Chief and William Tasman, MD Endowed Chair at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. She is also on the Board of Directors of Bristol Myers Squibb and president of the John Hopkins Medical and Surgical Association. Robertson, most recently Chief Commercial Officer of Eleusis Ltd, was previously CCO of Aerie Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Aerie, Robertson was Global Commercial Vice President Immunology and Ophthalmology at Johnson and Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Global Vice President Ophthalmology at Novartis. She also held several senior executive commercial roles at Novartis, Searle and Bristol Myers Squibb. In addition to Opthea, Robertson serves on the board of Durect Corporation.
Gilde Healthcare – Netherlands-based Gilde announced the appointment of Joep Muijrers to the investment team of its Venture & Growth capital fund. Muijrers will be responsible for Gilde’s investments in publicly-traded companies focused on therapeutics, healthtech and medical devices in Europe and the U.S. Most recently, Muijrers served as CFO and Chief of Portfolio Strategy at PureTech Health. Prior to PureTech, Muijrers was a Portfolio Manager at LSP.
Renovacor – Marc Semigran, former CMO of MyoKardia, was named CMO of Renovacor. He will be responsible for the management and global development of Renovacor’s pipeline. Prior to MyoKardia, Semigran led the Massachusetts General Hospital Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Program as Section Head and Medical Director. In addition, he led the Harvard Regional Clinical Center of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Heart Failure Network and was a Principal Investigator of a multicenter heart failure trial.
Generate Biomedicines – Mike Nohaile was named chief scientific officer of Generate Biomedicines. Nohaile will be stepping down from his role as an Operating Partner at Flagship Pioneering to join Generate’s senior leadership team. Prior to joining Flagship, Nohaile held several roles of increasing responsibility at Amgen, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President of Strategy, Commercialization, and Innovation. The company also announced Molly Gibson, a co-founder of Generate, will serve as Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer. In her new role, Gibson, a Principal at Flagship Pioneering, will leverage her origination experience at Flagship to build focused teams of subject-matter experts as well as a corporate strategy group. Prior to joining Flagship, Gibson led computational biology at Kaleido Biosciences.
Avadel Pharmaceuticals – Avadel strengthened its leadership team with three newly created roles. Jeff Cruikshank was named vice president of Sales; Denise Strauss was named vice president of Marketing and New Product Strategy; and Angela Woods was named vice president of People and Culture. Prior to joining Avadel, Cruikshank held positions of increasing leadership in sales and commercial training at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Novartis, and Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Strauss has worked with multiple pharma companies, including Genfit, Pfizer, Schering-Plough and Boehringer Ingelheim. Woods previously served as Vice President, Human Resources, at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.
Kallyope – Patrick Flanigan was named CFO. Flanigan served most recently as CFO at Ichnos Sciences. He launched his career in biotech at Genzyme, where he served as a VP of Investor Relations, followed by eight years as a Senior Vice President at Celgene where he oversaw the Investor Relations and Treasury functions.
Coya Therapeutics – Ann Lee, Senior Vice President of Cell Therapy Development and Operations at Bristol Myers Squibb, was named to the company’s board of directors. At BMS, Lee leads teams responsible for developing new cell therapy processes and technologies, manufacturing cell therapy products, designing new facilities, and building the global supply chain to deliver these new medicines for patients. Previously, she served as Executive Vice President of Technical Operations at Juno Therapeutics. Prior to Juno, Lee worked at Genentech and served Head of Global Technical Development at Roche in 2009.
Global Cancer Technology – M. Karen Newell Rogers was named Chief Scientific Consultant and Advisor at San Diego-based Global Cancer Technology. Newell Rogers currently serves as CSO at BCell Solutions. Previously, Newell Rogers was the CSO for Aspire Biotechnology, Inc. In addition to her new role at GCT, Dr. Newell Rogers will continue to serve as a Research Professor in the Department of Medical Physiology at Texas A&M Health Sciences Center, the Chief Scientific Officer at BCell Solutions, Inc., and an adjunct faculty member at the Barrow Neurological Institute.
Imago Biosciences – Wan-Jen Hong was named CMO of Bay Area-based Imago. Hong will be responsible for leading the clinical development of the Imago pipeline of therapies targeting LSD1 in various cancers and other bone marrow diseases. Hong joins Imago from Genentech, where she served as Group Medical Director in their late-stage clinical development group. Prior to Genentech, Hong was a clinical instructor in hematology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Synthekine – Mardi Dier was appointed to the board of directors, Robin Knifsend was named senior vice president of finance and operations and Antoni Ribas was appointed to the scientific advisory board of Synthekine. Dier is the CFO and executive vice president of Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical. She previously served as CFO and CBO of Portola Pharmaceuticals until its acquisition by Alexion Pharmaceuticals in 2020. Prior to joining Synthekine, Knifsend was senior vice president of finance and principal accounting officer at CytomX Therapeutics. Previously, Knifsend had several roles of increasing responsibility at Actelion Pharmaceuticals. Ribas is the director of the tumor immunology program at Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and director of Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at UCLA.
Repertoire Immune Medicines – Anne Walker was named CFO Repertoire. Prior to joining Repertoire, Walker led Global Real Estate Services and Strategic Initiatives for Bank of America. Earlier in her career, she served as Managing Director and Head of the U.S. Equity Capital Markets Syndicate for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Theodore Reiss was named CMO. Reiss was most recently a Venture Partner at Novo Ventures and previously at Celgene, where he led Clinical Research and Development, Inflammation and Immunology. He also has held global leadership positions in drug development at Novartis, Covance, and Merck. He has also served as Research Professor of Medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Jorg Thommes was named Executive Vice President, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Operations. Thommes was most recently head of Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) at the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute. He spent more than 16 years at Biogen and its predecessor Idec Pharmaceuticals.
Janux Therapeutics – Wayne Godfrey was named CMO of San Diego-based Janux. Prior to joining Janux, Godfrey served as the Vice President of Clinical Development of IGM Biosciences, Inc. Prior to IGM, he served as Senior Director, Clinical Development at Kite Pharma. Godfrey also served as CMO at Etubics, and Senior Director, Clinical Research Oncology at Gilead.
View the original press release here.
