CytoImmune CEO breaks down her 3 ‘pillars’ of success; Former Novartis, Gilead exec Alessandro Riva to lead an ultra low-profile cell therapy outfit – Endpoints News

Christi­na Cough­lin loves cell ther­a­py — pret­ty much defin­ing her ca­reer since her post­doc days with Carl June in Penn­syl­va­nia.

Now as the new head hon­cho at Cy­toIm­mune as of Wednes­day, the first-time CEO gets to work with a new type of cell ther­a­py — CAR-NK cells, li­censed from long-time NK cell re­searcher Michael Caligiuri and Jian­hua Yu at the City of Hope Na­tion­al Med­ical Cen­ter.

And Yu is the sole mem­ber of Cy­toIm­mune’s sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board.

Cough­lin got in­to the bio­phar­ma space af­ter get­ting her dou­ble bach­e­lor’s at Tem­ple Uni­ver­si­ty in math­e­mat­ics and bi­ol­o­gy, and then she went to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia for med school, where she got her PhD and MD.

Af­ter Penn, she worked her way up in var­i­ous no­table bio­phar­mas such as Pfiz­er and No­var­tis, and then piv­ot­ing to work­ing with cells as CMO at Im­muno­core, Tmu­ni­ty, and red blood cell-fo­cused Ru­bius be­fore join­ing Cy­toIm­mune.

So, why ex­act­ly did she leave Ru­bius? For Cough­lin, it was three rea­sons: dis­rup­tive sci­ence with Caligiuri and Yu’s work, con­trol over in-house man­u­fac­tur­ing, and in her view, the com­pa­ny has po­ten­tial for both short-term and long-term suc­cess.

All that said, Cough­lin has goals to achieve — three “pil­lars,” as she called it — in her first 100 days as CEO. And at a biotech with less than 35 em­ploy­ees, it is go­ing to be all hands on deck, come 2022.

“The first is fundrais­ing. I’m one of those C-suites that ac­tu­al­ly like it. I en­joy fundrais­ing — you know, you can get a lot of great ideas from in­vestors,” Cough­lin said.

And to that end, Cy­toIm­mune ex­ecs filed a plan with the SEC to raise ap­prox­i­mate­ly $100 mil­lion in eq­ui­ty back in Au­gust. At the time they filed, Cy­toIm­mune had raised more than $36 mil­lion as part of that fi­nanc­ing, leav­ing just un­der $64 mil­lion to be raised from in­vestors as of three months ago. Cough­lin did con­firm that the round is still open, but she em­pha­sized that there “are some im­por­tant con­ver­sa­tions com­ing up” and they’re look­ing for­ward to clos­ing the round — with no date giv­en yet.

“The sec­ond pil­lar is peo­ple and re­al­ly build­ing. There’s a cou­ple of re­al­ly key roles that we’re go­ing to need to build. We have to build a clin­i­cal or­ga­ni­za­tion,” Cough­lin said.

It is her fourth time do­ing so, she told End­points News — the last three times were as CMO at pre­vi­ous biotechs, and this is her first as CEO.

And the last pil­lar? Ex­e­cu­tion. And this is where Cy­toIm­mune will start to get busy — Cough­lin said that INDs will be filed in 2022 and 2023, and next year, the biotech plans to treat their first pa­tients in clin­i­cal tri­als.

But there’s al­ways the ques­tion: What about fu­ture part­ner­ships? And while there are some con­tacts that Cough­lin has, she told End­points that there are on­go­ing con­ver­sa­tions with po­ten­tial part­ners, but noth­ing has been set in stone.

— Paul Schloess­er

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→ Alessan­dro Ri­va’s lat­est turn as a CEO is with In­ti­ma Bio­science, a lit­tle-known biotech based in New York and the UK that of­fers even less on its bare-bones web­site. But we do know it’s a cell ther­a­py com­pa­ny that fo­cus­es on the im­mune check­point CISH, and Ri­va sure knows his way around the cell ther­a­py space. As glob­al head of on­col­o­gy ther­a­peu­tics and cell & gene ther­a­py at Gilead, Ri­va was in the thick of the Kite buy­out, which fea­tured Yescar­ta as the main prize. Be­fore that, he de­vot­ed 12 years to No­var­tis and was the Swiss phar­ma’s glob­al head of on­col­o­gy de­vel­op­ment and med­ical af­fairs. Ri­va re­cent­ly end­ed his two-year run as the CEO of Ich­nos Sci­ences, where ex-Al­lo­gene VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment Cyril Kon­to has now tak­en com­mand. (More about them lat­er.)

→ Josep Bas­saganya-Ri­era, who steered Lan­dos Bio­phar­ma to an IPO as 2021 dawned and then to an IBD part­ner­ship with Per­cep­tive’s Lian­Bio, has re­signed as chair­man, pres­i­dent and CEO. The change takes ef­fect im­me­di­ate­ly as Chris Garabe­di­an takes over as chair­man and ex-Es­pe­ri­on CEO Tim Mayleben — a board mem­ber at Lan­dos for six months — gets an­oth­er shot as a chief ex­ec­u­tive, al­beit on an in­ter­im ba­sis. Mayleben de­cid­ed to walk away from Es­pe­ri­on in May, open­ing the door for Shel­don Koenig to lead a staff that’s been sliced dra­mat­i­cal­ly for bud­getary rea­sons. The first biotech to emerge from Garabe­di­an’s Xon­toge­ny port­fo­lio, Lan­dos tar­gets au­toim­mune dis­eases with its AI-based LANCE plat­form.

→ Hugh O’Dowd will em­bark on his next chap­ter as a chief ex­ec­u­tive at the Bo­ca Ra­ton women’s health drug­mak­er Ther­a­peu­tic­sMD, re­plac­ing co-founder Robert Finizio “ef­fec­tive on or be­fore” Dec. 31. Finizio will main­tain a pres­ence at Ther­a­peu­tic­sMD as vice chair­man of the board. O’Dowd, a long­time No­var­tis ex­ec who chairs the board of ONK Ther­a­peu­tics, was pres­i­dent and CEO of Third Rock’s Neon Ther­a­peu­tics from 2016 un­til a lit­tle com­pa­ny called BioN­Tech snapped it up for a dis­count price in 2020, be­fore Covid-19 made BioN­Tech a house­hold name. Neon’s can­cer vac­cine da­ta nev­er im­pressed and the biotech was run­ning low on cash, trig­ger­ing lay­offs and caus­ing the stock to plum­met as much as 85 per­cent since it de­buted on Nas­daq.

→ The fifth sub from Joe Jimenez and Mark Fish­man’s Adi­tum Bio port­fo­lio, An­co­ra Bio — which launched in June — has tapped Stephen Kanes as CEO, look­ing to push its se­lec­tive va­so­pressin 1b re­cep­tor (V1b) an­tag­o­nist ANC-501 for treat­ment-re­sis­tant de­pres­sion in­to the clin­ic by 2022. Kanes walks away from Sage af­ter an eight-year as­so­ci­a­tion in which he led clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment on a pipeline that in­cludes de­pres­sion drugs Zul­res­so and zu­ra­nolone, and he’s an As­traZeneca vet in the ar­eas of in­flam­ma­tion, neu­ro­science and res­pi­ra­to­ry. Adi­tum Bio raised $133 mil­lion in No­vem­ber 2020 af­ter Jimenez and Fish­man co-found­ed the VC in 2019.

→ Bay­er has plucked Christoph Koe­nen from Ot­su­ka, ap­point­ing him as the new glob­al head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and op­er­a­tions with­in R&D at its phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals di­vi­sion. Koe­nen, who was CMO at Ot­su­ka, has held clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment gigs at Bris­tol My­ers Squibb (where he was head of car­dio­vas­cu­lar de­vel­op­ment), Glax­o­SmithK­line and No­vo Nordisk. Last week, Leaps by Bay­er an­nounced its back­ing of the George Church spin­out GRO Bio­sciences, spe­cial­iz­ing in lab-in­vent­ed amino acids.

→ Richard Pas­coe is out as pres­i­dent and CEO of San Diego re­gen­er­a­tive med­i­cine de­vel­op­er His­to­gen for the ever-pop­u­lar pur­suit of “dif­fer­ent op­por­tu­ni­ties,” while cur­rent board mem­ber Steven Men­to has been named in­ter­im pres­i­dent and CEO as well as ex­ec­u­tive chair­man. Men­to, the pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive at Cona­tus un­til its merg­er with His­to­gen, al­so helmed Idun Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals from 1997 un­til its sale to Pfiz­er in 2005. Pas­coe was chief ex­ec­u­tive at So­max­on Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Apri­cus Bio­sciences be­fore join­ing His­to­gen in ear­ly 2019.

→ In­ovio was re­al­ly good at jump­ing ahead in the Covid-19 vac­cine race ear­ly on, but a spat with its con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er put the biotech be­hind the 8 ball while its com­pe­ti­tion roared by with their own vac­cines. This week, though, the FDA was more kind to In­ovio and al­lowed Phase III for INO-4800 to pro­ceed, and four mem­bers of the team are ready “to po­si­tion In­ovio for growth and up­com­ing com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions,” as the press re­lease states.

Mark Twyman has been pro­mot­ed to chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer af­ter four years in var­i­ous com­mer­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. Twyman, who was with Mer­ck from 1988-2006, has al­so been an ex­ec with Med­Im­mune, Sanofi Gen­zyme and No­vavax. Else­where, Rob Crot­ty (gen­er­al coun­sel) comes to In­ovio af­ter serv­ing in the same ca­pac­i­ty at Nabri­va Ther­a­peu­tics; Asli Gevgilili (chief hu­man re­sources of­fi­cer) is a Mer­ck alum who just fin­ished up nine years at Al­ler­gan, where she served as VP, hu­man re­sources since 2014; and Gene Kim (chief cor­po­rate af­fairs of­fi­cer) takes on this new­ly cre­at­ed role af­ter a year as pres­i­dent of In­ovio Asia.

→ Sali­o­Gen is swing­ing for the fences by form­ing an ex­ec­u­tive ad­vi­so­ry board with some se­ri­ous grav­i­tas. Out­go­ing Al­ny­lam CEO John Maraganore, Bridge­Bio co-founder An­drew Lo from MIT and for­mer FDA com­mis­sion­er Mark Mc­Clel­lan make up the for­mi­da­ble trio, and our John Car­roll has CEO Ray Tabib­i­azar’s thoughts on the big-time moves.

→ While tout­ing Phase I/II re­sults with its Fab­ry dis­ease drug FLT190 this week, Free­line Ther­a­peu­tics — un­der the new lead­er­ship of Michael Pari­ni — has ap­point­ed Pamela Foulds as CMO. The one-time med­ical chief at Aege­ri­on Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Foulds is a Gen­zyme vet whose eight years at Bio­gen (2006-14) cen­tered on he­mo­phil­ia and neu­rol­o­gy. She suc­ceeds Julie Krop, who an­nounced her de­par­ture in Ju­ly and then took the CMO job at PureTech the fol­low­ing month.

And what about Free­line’s in­ter­im CMO? Al­i­son Long has moved on to han­dle CMO du­ties at Kalei­do Bio­sciences, Flag­ship’s mi­cro­bio­me biotech that drew the ire of the FDA in Sep­tem­ber for “fail­ure to sub­mit INDs for the con­duct of clin­i­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tions with an in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al new drug.” Long led clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for Free­line at the time she took over as in­ter­im CMO, and she’s al­so been a clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment ex­ec with Spark and uniQure.

→ Seat­tle RNA edit­ing out­fit Shape Ther­a­peu­tics raised a Se­ries B in Ju­ly that to­taled $112 mil­lion, then struck a neu­ro deal with Roche in Au­gust that has the po­ten­tial to be worth in the neigh­bor­hood of $3 bil­lion. CEO Fran­cois Vi­gneault has now found a new chief sci­en­tist in-house to work along­side him at the gene ther­a­py biotech. David Huss, Shape’s head of re­search who’s been with the com­pa­ny since 2018, earns the pro­mo­tion to CSO while fel­low Juno Ther­a­peu­tics alum Lisa Tay­lor Ash gets el­e­vat­ed to gen­er­al coun­sel. While with Juno, Huss ran a T cell en­gi­neer­ing team and Ash was VP, head of health­care law and com­pli­ance be­fore she was named Shape’s head of le­gal in 2019.

→ Sai­id Zarra­bi­an has stepped aside as pres­i­dent and CEO of San Diego can­cer play­er Kin­tara Ther­a­peu­tics to be­come head of strate­gic part­ner­ships, hand­ing the reins to chair­man Robert Hoff­man. The ex-CFO of Are­na, Anap­tys­Bio and Heron Ther­a­peu­tics, Hoff­man al­so sits on the boards of such com­pa­nies as Aslan Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and San­iona, and he won’t re­lin­quish his po­si­tion as chair­man — which he’s held since June 2018. Kin­tara showed op­ti­mism with da­ta from a Phase II tri­al of its glioblas­toma drug VAL-083, but the stock re­mains mired in pen­ny-stock ter­ri­to­ry since a pre­cip­i­tous drop sev­er­al years ago.

→ Prog­en­i­ty, the com­pa­ny fo­cused on women’s health, gas­troin­testi­nal health and oral bio­ther­a­peu­tics, has reeled in Adi Mo­han­ty as CEO. Pri­or to hop­ping aboard San Diego-based Prog­en­i­ty, Mo­han­ty was CEO of Bi­o­Time and VP at Tran­skary­ot­ic Ther­a­pies (ac­quired by Shire). Mo­han­ty spent a decade at Shire, which cul­mi­nat­ed in his role as pres­i­dent, re­gen­er­a­tive med­i­cine. Ear­li­er in his ca­reer, Mo­han­ty was with Bax­ter Health­care and served as a board mem­ber for On­co­Cyte.

→ Fel­low­ship of the Ring: Flag­ship’s gene ther­a­py play Ring Ther­a­peu­tics, which fo­cus­es on anellovirus­es and raised $117 mil­lion in a Se­ries B round this sum­mer, has lined up a trio of new ex­ecs, with CSO Yong Chang lead­ing off. Chang over­saw de­vel­op­ment at Ko­r­ro Bio and was al­so VP of R&D at In­tel­lia af­ter stints at Aileron Ther­a­peu­tics and Med­Im­mune. John Huynh, who joins Ring as SVP of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions, is an ex-sci­en­tist at WuXi AppTec who was pre­vi­ous­ly VP of gene ther­a­py tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions for PTC Ther­a­peu­tics. Fi­nal­ly, chief reg­u­la­to­ry of­fi­cer Kevin John­son has been in­volved in reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs with com­pa­nies large and small, in­clud­ing GSK, Vtesse/Su­cam­po, Imara and, just be­fore seiz­ing this lat­est op­por­tu­ni­ty, In­ozyme.

→ Jen­nifer Doud­na’s CRISPR up­start Cari­bou Bio­sciences has en­joyed an event­ful 2021 — part­ner­ing with Ab­b­Vie in Feb­ru­ary for a pair of off-the-shelf CAR-Ts and fol­low­ing up its $115 mil­lion Se­ries C with a smooth $304 mil­lion IPO in Ju­ly. With its chRD­NA tech­nol­o­gy (pro­nounced “chardon­nay”), Cari­bou has popped the cork for its new CBO, Ruhi Khan, who has pre­vi­ous­ly held busi­ness de­vel­op­ment posts at Acor­da Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Lex­i­con Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Mean­while, ex-Pfiz­er chief patent of­fi­cer Dara Richard­son-Heron has been added to Cari­bou’s board of di­rec­tors, and Cari­bou CEO Rachel Hau­r­witz grabbed a board seat of her own at pro­teomics play­er Seer.

→ Zain Kas­sam has de­cid­ed to walk away as CMO at mi­cro­bio­me play­er Finch Ther­a­peu­tics “in or­der to re­turn to Cana­da to at­tend to a fam­i­ly health mat­ter,” ac­cord­ing to a re­lease. The Finch co-founder will be re­placed in the in­ter­im by De­bra Sil­berg, the for­mer glob­al lead in gas­troen­terol­o­gy at Shire who then be­came Take­da’s glob­al VP, head of clin­i­cal sci­ence and de­vel­op­ment for GI dis­eases. A search for a per­ma­nent CMO is on­go­ing at Finch, which re­leased pos­i­tive Phase II da­ta on Tues­day for its drug CP101 in C. dif­fi­cile.

→ The same day Calithera Bio­sciences tossed its KEAP­SAKE tri­al for its NSCLC drug tela­gle­na­s­tat in­to the scrapheap last week, the South San Fran­cis­co biotech pro­mot­ed Emil Kuri­akose to CMO. Kuri­akose moved to Calithera from the No­var­tis In­sti­tutes for Bio­Med­ical Re­search in 2017 and had been head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment since Feb­ru­ary 2020. He suc­ceeds Kei­th Or­ford, who will take Jean George’s seat on the board of di­rec­tors. Calithera now turns its at­ten­tion to sapanis­ert­ib and mi­vavo­tinib, two can­cer drugs that once be­longed to Take­da.

→ Co-found­ed by Jeanne Lor­ing and led by first-year CEO Damien McDe­vitt from Akcea, San Diego-based Parkin­son’s start­up As­pen Neu­ro­science has brought on Kameel Farag as CFO. Farag closed out his 16 years at Am­gen as a re­gion­al CFO, leav­ing the drug gi­ant in 2018 to take the SVP, fi­nance job at Io­n­is. Or­biMed took top billing for As­pen’s $70 mil­lion Se­ries A in April 2020, with ARCH Ven­ture Part­ners al­so con­tribut­ing.

→ Van­cou­ver-based Zymeworks has for­mal­ly ap­point­ed Neil Joseph­son as CMO. Joseph­son had been serv­ing as the com­pa­ny’s in­ter­im CMO since May, and his tran­si­tion to per­ma­nent CMO will take place on Mon­day. Joseph­son joined Zymeworks in 2019 as VP, clin­i­cal re­search and was lat­er pro­mot­ed to SVP.

→ A re­fash­ion­ing of the com­mer­cial team kicks in­to gear at Re­lief Ther­a­peu­tics with the de­par­ture of CCO Chris Sti­j­nen, ef­fec­tive Nov. 30. Re­lief Eu­rope pres­i­dent Pao­lo Galfet­ti, along with staffers at Re­lief sub APR Ap­plied Phar­ma Re­search, will take care of EU and UK com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions, and An­tho­ny Kim will step in Dec. 1 as SVP and head of US com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions. Fin­ish­ing out his three-year tenure as VP of glob­al com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment at Novo­cure, Kim is a Genen­tech and Alex­ion vet who al­so had a quick stop as ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of mar­ket­ing at Igny­ta, which Roche ac­quired in a $1.7 bil­lion buy­out.

→ Like any head coach in any sport, you go with who you trust to fill out your staff (think Tex Win­ter with Phil Jack­son on those great Bulls and Lak­ers teams). We ob­vi­ous­ly see this dy­nam­ic play out in biotech all the time, and this week Don Mar­vin is back with Dale Pfost as Chemomab’s CFO, EVP and COO. In March 2020, Mar­vin took the CFO job at Lo­do Ther­a­peu­tics while Pfost was CEO there, but Lo­do was then pur­chased by Zymer­gen be­fore that big­ger com­pa­ny suf­fered its ig­no­min­ious face­plant in Au­gust. Pfost took con­trol at Chemomab in Sep­tem­ber, and it didn’t take long for Mar­vin to join him.

→ Charles Tri­ano has been ap­point­ed CFO at Diem Nguyen–led Xalud Ther­a­peu­tics. The gene ther­a­py biotech lured Tri­ano over from Pfiz­er, where he served as SVP of in­vestor re­la­tions since 2008. Be­fore join­ing Pfiz­er, Tri­ano was VP of in­vestor re­la­tions at For­est Lab­o­ra­to­ries.

→ Nordic Nanovec­tor has ap­point­ed Pierre Do­di­on as CMO. Do­di­on has made the rounds at such Big Phar­mas as Pfiz­er, No­var­tis and Roche, and he has al­so served as med­ical chief at Ari­ad Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and In­nate Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Back in Sep­tem­ber, Erik Skullerud joined the Oslo-based biotech as CEO.

→ Penn spin­out Ca­balet­ta Bio, a biotech zoom­ing in on chimeric au­toan­ti­body re­cep­tors (CAAR-Ts, or dou­ble-A CAR-Ts), has pro­mot­ed Samik Ba­su to CSO and Heather Harte-Hall to chief com­pli­ance of­fi­cer. Ba­su, a for­mer Adap­ti­m­mune staffer, will cel­e­brate two years with Ca­balet­ta in De­cem­ber and had spent the past year as VP of pre­clin­i­cal re­search and trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine. Harte-Hall, who worked with Ba­su at Adap­ti­m­mune, had been VP of qual­i­ty and com­pli­ance since her ar­rival at Ca­balet­ta in March 2019.

→ Er­ic Feld­man has tak­en over as CMO at Ich­nos Sci­ences, where he will al­so co-chair the R&D lead­er­ship team. Feld­man pre­vi­ous­ly served as SVP, CMO at Gly­coMimet­ics; he boasts an im­pres­sive aca­d­e­m­ic ca­reer, in­clud­ing a stint as pro­fes­sor of med­i­cine and di­rec­tor of the hema­to­log­i­cal ma­lig­nan­cies ser­vice at Weill-Cor­nell/New York Pres­by­ter­ian Hos­pi­tal. One oth­er de­vel­op­ment: Ich­nos has al­so ap­point­ed for­mer Kymab CMO So­nia Quarati­no to its board of di­rec­tors.

→ Backed by GSK and part­ner­ing with Eli Lil­ly on au­toim­mune dis­eases, Sit­ryx has en­list­ed Tanya Bor­suk as CBO. Bor­suk worked in busi­ness de­vel­op­ment with Cel­gene and lat­er Bris­tol My­ers, and she makes the tran­si­tion to Sit­ryx from a brief stay at Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing, where she was VP, port­fo­lio strat­e­gy and BD al­liances. Pri­or to Cel­gene, Bor­suk was a se­nior man­ag­er with­in the glob­al on­col­o­gy busi­ness unit at Ei­sai.

→ Proven­tion Bio an­nounced its CFO tran­si­tion on Nov. 4, and a day lat­er the au­toim­mune dis­ease play­er se­lect­ed Miguel San­juan as SVP of re­search and ear­ly de­vel­op­ment. San­juan brings abun­dant Big Phar­ma ex­pe­ri­ence from J&J and As­traZeneca, and he al­so led im­muno-on­col­o­gy small mol­e­cule dis­cov­ery bi­ol­o­gy at Bris­tol My­ers be­fore jump­ing to Gos­samer Bio in 2020 as VP, head of trans­la­tion­al bi­ol­o­gy. As Peer Re­view men­tioned last week, Thier­ry Chauche will suc­ceed the re­tir­ing An­drew Drech­sler as Proven­tion Bio’s fi­nance chief on Dec. 1.

→ Ac­tym Ther­a­peu­tics, the mi­cro­bial-based im­muno-on­col­o­gy biotech us­ing its STACT (Sal­mo­nel­la Ty­phimuri­um-At­ten­u­at­ed Can­cer Ther­a­py) plat­form, has named Chan Whit­ing as chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer. Whit­ing pre­vi­ous­ly led R&D at Tem­pest Ther­a­peu­tics be­fore set­ting off for Berke­ley-based Ac­tym, which pulled to­geth­er its Se­ries A fund­ing with the help of Boehringer In­gel­heim Ven­ture Fund in April 2020.

→ Can­cer di­ag­nos­tic de­vel­op­er Ex­act Sci­ences has found a CCO in for­mer Pfiz­er ex­ec Everett Cun­ning­ham. Cun­ning­ham makes the leap over to Ex­act from GE Health­care, where he served as CEO and pres­i­dent of the com­pa­ny’s US and Cana­da re­gion. Pri­or to his stint at GE, Cun­ning­ham was SVP, com­mer­cial at Quest Di­ag­nos­tics. Dur­ing his time at Pfiz­er, Cun­ning­ham served in a va­ri­ety of roles in­clud­ing, re­gion­al pres­i­dent, es­tab­lished prod­ucts for Asia Pa­cif­ic; VP sales for US phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals; and VP of glob­al cor­po­rate hu­man re­sources.

→ Ap­plied Ge­net­ic Tech­nolo­gies Cor­po­ra­tion (AGTC) has wel­comed Hope D’Oy­ley-Gay as gen­er­al coun­sel. D’Oy­ley-Gay comes aboard from Spirovant, where she served as gen­er­al coun­sel and VP of ad­min­is­tra­tion. Pri­or to that role, D’Oy­ley-Gay had stints at Reed Smith and GSK.

→ Al­go­Ther­a­peu­tix — the Paris-based com­pa­ny work­ing on de­vel­op­ing a non-opi­oid top­i­cal treat­ment for pe­riph­er­al neu­ro­path­ic pain — has named Jens Ell­rich as CMO. This isn’t Ell­rich’s first run as CMO of a com­pa­ny — hav­ing served in the same role at Cer­bomed, EBS Tech­nolo­gies, Pre­ci­sis, Sapi­ens and WISE.

→ Three new staffers have poured in­to La­va Ther­a­peu­tics, the Dutch-Amer­i­can gam­ma delta T cell biotech that crossed the $100 mil­lion mark for its March IPO. Jes­si­ca Tr­uscel­lo (VP of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions) was Bahi­ja Jal­lal’s head of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions dur­ing her six-year tenure at Im­muno­core, and she al­so car­ries clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions ex­pe­ri­ence with her from Pfiz­er. Sumeet Am­barkhane (ex­ec­u­tive med­ical di­rec­tor) is a UCB alum who spent near­ly sev­en years at Mor­phoSys, where he rose through the ranks to be­come se­nior glob­al pro­gram med­ical di­rec­tor. Fi­nal­ly, Wouter van Hun­nik (VP of hu­man re­sources) gets a fresh start here af­ter 11 years in HR with Philips.

→ Boston-based Imara has named Toni Brans­ford to take charge of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for tovi­non­trine, a drug for sick­le cell dis­ease and be­ta tha­lassemia that’s al­so be­ing stud­ied for heart fail­ure with pre­served ejec­tion frac­tion (HF­pEF). A for­mer glob­al clin­i­cal lead for the HF­pEF pro­gram at No­var­tis, Brans­ford leaves her se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor post at Kalei­do Bio­sciences, and ear­ly on in her ca­reer she held sev­er­al roles at Scher­ing-Plough.

→ Pep­Gen just keeps adding more pep to the team, pluck­ing Jaya Goy­al from Wave Life Sci­ences and ap­point­ing her EVP of re­search and pre­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. Goy­al, a 16-year Bio­gen vet, first joined Wave Life Sci­ences in 2017 and be­came the Take­da part­ner’s SVP, pre­clin­i­cal and clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment sci­ences a year ago. Since James McArthur took the helm in Feb­ru­ary, Pep­Gen’s team has grown at a brisk pace with the re­cent ap­point­ment of CFO Noel Don­nel­ly and sev­er­al oth­er ex­ecs.

→ San Diego pre­ci­sion on­col­o­gy play­er Turn­ing Point Ther­a­peu­tics has re­cruit­ed Adam Levy as SVP of in­vestor re­la­tions. That’s a wrap for Levy at Zio­pharm On­col­o­gy, where he was EVP of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment and in­vestor re­la­tions. He’s al­so made stops at Alex­ion, Bris­tol My­ers and No­var­tis and was Gilead’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of in­vestor re­la­tions and head of cor­po­rate strat­e­gy. In oth­er Turn­ing Point news, se­nior di­rec­tor of cor­po­rate and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment Scott Lip­man is now the com­pa­ny’s first chief of staff.

→ Af­ter nam­ing Jen­nifer Di­a­mond CMO a few weeks back, Boul­der, CO-based OnKure Ther­a­peu­tics has carved out space for Mark Boys as VP of dis­cov­ery chem­istry. Boys steps away from his sec­ond stint with Pfiz­er af­ter two years in med­i­c­i­nal chem­istry with the phar­ma gi­ant, and he al­so has 12 years un­der his belt from Ar­ray Bio­Phar­ma, co-found­ed by OnKure CEO Tony Pis­co­pio.

→ Jayson Pun­wani has signed on as a part­ner with Kurt von Em­ster’s San Fran­cis­co team at Abing­worth, whose lat­est fund — Abing­worth Bioven­tures 8 — clocked in at $465 mil­lion in Feb­ru­ary. Pun­wani is an ex-part­ner at Take­da Ven­tures who co-found­ed Co­ho Ther­a­peu­tics with Fred Hutch’s Bruce Clur­man.

→ Out­go­ing J&J CEO Alex Gorsky has joined the board of di­rec­tors of Ap­ple, chaired by ex-Genen­tech CEO and cur­rent Cal­i­co chief Art Levin­son. In Au­gust, Gorsky an­nounced he would leave the phar­ma gi­ant af­ter nine years at the top, paving the way for Joaquin Du­a­to to re­place him on Jan. 3. Ap­ple’s board al­so in­cludes for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Al Gore and Black­Rock co-founder Sue Wag­n­er.

→ Rafaèle Tord­j­man has been named chair of Alen­tis Ther­a­peu­tics, a Swiss fi­brot­ic dis­ease biotech fi­nanced by her VC, Jeito Cap­i­tal. Alen­tis has al­so made room for Vec­tivBio CEO Lu­ca Santarel­li on the board.

→ With new CEO Michael Amoroso in place, Pre­ci­sion Bio­Sciences has elect­ed Sam Wadsworth and Shari Lisa Piré to the board of di­rec­tors. Wadsworth, a Sanofi Gen­zyme vet, is CSO at Ul­tragenyx Gene Ther­a­py, and Piré — the for­mer chief le­gal of­fi­cer for CD­MO Cog­nate BioSer­vices — is chief le­gal & sus­tain­abil­i­ty of­fi­cer with Plume De­sign.

→ Ex-Sage CEO Jeff Jonas as­sumed the role of chair­man a month ago at Swiss neu­ro biotech Noe­ma Phar­ma, and the board is ex­pand­ing with the ad­di­tions of Cather­ine Moukheibir and Ilise Lom­bar­do. This is an­oth­er in a long line of board ap­point­ments for Moukheibir, which in­cludes seats at DNA Script, Iron­wood Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Or­p­hazyme. Mean­while, Lom­bar­do is the new CMO at Shankar Ra­maswamy’s Kriya Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ My­ovant’s board of di­rec­tors has a new ad­di­tion with Nan­cy Va­lente. Be­gin­ning her as­so­ci­a­tion with Genen­tech in 2003, Va­lente re­cent­ly served as Roche’s SVP in glob­al prod­uct de­vel­op­ment, on­col­o­gy, hema­tol­ogy de­vel­op­ment ther­a­peu­tic area.

→ Nor­bert Bischof­berg­er’s Kro­nos Bio has named J&J and Am­gen alum Roshawn Blunt to the board of di­rec­tors. Blunt, the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of 1798 Con­sul­tants, joins an il­lus­tri­ous group on the board that in­cludes Bischof­berg­er, chair­man Arie Bellde­grun, Bay­er’s Mar­i­anne De Backer and Otel­lo Stam­pac­chia.

→ New York can­cer biotech Be­yond­Spring has a new plinab­u­lin part­ner in Jiang­su Hen­grui af­ter pos­i­tive da­ta for the drug stopped in­vestors and an­a­lysts in their tracks. Lan Huang’s crew has now ap­point­ed Mark San­tos to the board of di­rec­tors. San­tos, the for­mer pres­i­dent of ION So­lu­tions, is SVP of phar­ma strat­e­gy & con­tract­ing for OneOn­col­o­gy.

→ Dar­lene Dep­tu­la-Hicks has notched her sec­ond board ap­point­ment in as many months, this time with Aera­mi Ther­a­peu­tics out of Durham, NC. In Oc­to­ber, the F-star CFO picked up a seat on the board of di­rec­tors at Abcuro.

→ Ar­bu­tus Bio­phar­ma has pulled in Tram Tran to its board of di­rec­tors. Tran cur­rent­ly serves as the CMO of Glympse Bio and has pre­vi­ous­ly served as VP of med­ical af­fairs, glob­al head, liv­er dis­eases, fi­bro­sis and Covid-19 at Gilead.

→ Van­cou­ver-based De­fence Ther­a­peu­tics has re­cruit­ed Ri­am Sham­maa to its board of di­rec­tors. Sham­maa is the founder of Pal­lian­era Phar­ma and In­tel­lis­tem Tech­nolo­gies and is a man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Re­gen Cap­i­tal.

Derek Graf al­so con­tributed to this edi­tion.

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