Allogene, Progenity, Adaptive Phage Tout New Top Executives

Pharma, biotech and life sciences organizations add new leaders to their boards and executive teams in this week’s Movers & Shakers.

Evonetix: Paul Beastall was named chairman of the board of directors of U.K.-based Evonetix. He was previously a non-executive director at the company. Beastall’s most recent role was Strategy Director at Cambridge Consultants.

Generate Biomedicines: Sean Martin was named chief legal officer and corporate counsel of Generate Biomedicines. For the past five years, he was general counsel and senior vice president at Baxter International, Inc. Before that role, he was general counsel at Apollo Education Group, the parent company of the for-profit University of Phoenix. Previously, he was vice president for commercial law and corporate law at Amgen and deputy general counsel for litigation at Fresenius Medical Care North America, a renal care company.

Progenity, Inc.: Paul Shabram was named SVP of technical operations. Before Progenity, Shabram formed Ventana BioSciences Consulting to support vaccines and cancer therapeutics developers. Previously, he was the VP of technical development at Emergent BioSolutions. He joined Emergent through the acquisition of PaxVax. Before PaxVax, he held management positions in development and CMC at Schering-Plough/Canji, Cytel, and Chiron.

Xalud Therapeutics: Amy Chappell was named an independent strategic advisor to the company. She serves on the scientific advisory board of Pinteon Therapeutics, is an adjunct clinical associate professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine and is a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. She spent over 25 years at Eli Lilly, where she started as an associated clinical research physician and took on roles of increasing responsibility until her retirement in 2014 as a senior medical fellow.

ROME Therapeutics: Nurjana Bachman was appointed SVP of corporate development and strategy. She most recently served as VP of biopharma and corporate alliances at Foundation Medicine. Bachman previously served as a chief business officer and co-founder of Claritas Genomics. Before Claritas, she served as associate director of Strategic Initiatives and Business Development at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Technology & Innovation Development Office.

Vedere Bio II, Inc.: Anna-Maria Demetriades was named chief medical officer. Before joining Vedere, Demetriades served as the lead clinician for Vabysmo at Genentech. Before Genentech, Demetriades served as chief of the glaucoma service at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, for five years and as an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology for 10 years.

Calyxt: Suellen Boot joined Calyxt as business development director, and Elizabeth Teigland was named manufacturing director. Boot most recently served as managing director of natural innovation & operation at Green Line. Before that, she served as VP of Sales & Marketing at Bio Component Research and Global Manager, Technical Marketing at Lonza Consumer Care and Arch Personal Care Products. Previously, Boot held marketing manager and global product roles at Croda Inc., GE Advanced Materials, and Brooks Industries, Inc. Teigland joins Calyxt from Agropour Ingredients, where she served as director of protein research. Prior to that, she served as a research scientist at Saputo Dairy Foods USA and as a field application specialist at m2p-labs GmbH. Previously, Teigland held various biotechnology and chemistry roles at Cargill, Inc.

Phathom Pharmaceuticals: Frank Karbe was appointed to the board of directors. He most recently served as president and chief financial officer at Myovant Sciences. Prior to Myovant, Karbe served as executive vice president and CFO at Exelixis, Inc. Earlier in his career, he worked as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs & Co. Karbe has previously served on the Board of Directors of Aduro Biotech, Arbutus Biopharma and Kolltan Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Adaptive Phage Therapeutics: Rob Casper was named VP of clinical operations. Casper previously served in clinical operation roles at multiple biotech companies, most recently as Vice President of Clinical Operations at Altimmune and as senior director of clinical operations at Kolon TissueGene.

Seed Health: Johnson & Johnson vet Dirk Gevers was named chief scientific officer. Gevers joins from Janssen Pharmaceutical, where he helped launch the Janssen Human Microbiome Institute and served as the global head.

Shape Therapeutics: Technology industry executives Gayathri Rajan and Kelly Sims were appointed to the board of directors. Gayathri Rajan recently joined DriveWealth as chief product officer after more than 16 years with Google, where she worked on several strategic platform initiatives, ranging from Google Payments to Google Maps. Kelly Sims was an early member of the Stripe team and served as head of communications, overseeing public affairs, internal and external communications, brand development, social media and media relations. Sims currently serves as a board adviser to Watershed, a software platform company for climate programs, and the AI research company OpenAI.

Jnana Therapeutics: Doug Pagán was named CFO and COO. Prior to joining Jnana, Pagán served as CFO of Dicerna Pharmaceuticals. Pagán also held the role of CFO at KSQ Therapeutics and Paratek Pharmaceuticals and was previously VP of finance at Acceleron Pharma. Additionally, he served on the Board of Directors at Ziopharm Oncology and held roles of increasing responsibility at Biogen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson and J.P. Morgan earlier in his career.

BIOTHERYX INC.: Jeff Caravella was named CFO. Caravella previously served as VP of finance at Tango Therapeutics. Prior, he held finance roles across commercial, business development, and operations functions at other publicly-held companies, including Editas Medicine, Charles River Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson.

PneumoWave: Gary Cooney was appointed mental health lead. He is a medical doctor and consultant psychiatrist with extensive experience working with addiction and mental health issues in the NHS and private sector.

BlueSphere Bio: Robert Keefe was named CDO. Before joining BlueSphere, Keefe served as head of CMC for cell and gene therapies at AstraZeneca, where he led the global development of autologous and allogeneic cell therapies. Prior to that role, he held various leadership positions at several biopharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Lentigen Corporation, Autolus, Lonza and WuXi AppTec.

Clover Oncology: LiongHo Chua was appointed president of Greater China. Before joining Clover, Chua served as the chief strategy officer for AIM Vaccine, a leading vaccine manufacturer in China. He also held the position of country manager for Sandoz China. Prior to Sandoz, he was the general manager of Asia Commercial Operations for Gilead Sciences, Inc.

Glooko, Inc.: Alfonso “Chito” Zulueta was appointed to the board of directors. Zulueta comes to the Glooko Board having served more than 30 years at Eli Lilly, where he held numerous roles of increasing responsibility. When he retired in 2021, he was president of the company’s international business unit. Zulueta also serves on the boards of directors of CTS Corporate, Syneos Health and Calidi Biotherapeutics.

Erasca, Inc.: Jean Liu was appointed to the board of directors. She will serve on the audit committee. She currently serves as the chief legal officer of Seagen, Inc. Previously, she was vice president and general counsel at Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. and chief legal officer at Durect Corporation.

The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine: Janet Lynch Lambert will step down as the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine CEO after guiding the leading international advocacy organization for cell, gene, and tissue-engineered therapies for the past five years. The ARM board has constituted an 8-person search committee to conduct the search for a CEO successor, and Lambert is a key member of that committee.

MeiraGTx Holdings: Debra Yu, president and chief strategy officer of LianBio, was appointed to the MeiraGTx board of directors. She has held senior positions at Pfizer in its Worldwide Business Development organization and Labrador Advisors, LLC.

Genenta Science: Mark A. Sirgo has been nominated to serve as chairman of the board following the resignation of Stephen Squinto. Sirgo most recently was CEO of ArunA Biomedical, Inc. He previously founded and spent 13 years as CEO of the specialty pharmaceutical company BioDelivery Sciences International.

Tribun Health: Based in Paris, Tribun Health, formerly known as Tribvn Healthcare, named Loic Dartois as VP of Pharma. Dartois began his career at Sanofi as a product manager. He became business development director with several companies such as Optum, Quintiles, ICON and PPD.

Hogan Lovells: Lynn Mehler was named practice area leader for the law firm’s Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology Regulatory practice. Mehler currently serves as co-head of the firm’s Life Sciences and Health Care industry sector and will continue in this role. Mehler joined Hogan Lovells as a partner in 2010, following 12 years with the FDA’s Office of the Chief Counsel.

Aether Biomachines: Erik Scher, an Operating Partner at True North Venture Partners, was appointed to the board of directors. He also served as CCO and president at Hyconix, CEO and COO at Siluria Technologies, among his operational roles.

Allogene Therapeutics: Susan Lundeen was named chief people officer. She assumes her role on May 2. She most recently served as chief human resources officer at Unity Biotechnology. Prior to that role, Lundeen was SVP of human resources at Kythera (Acquired by Allergan). From 2005 to 2007, she was VP of Human Resources and Administration at Activus Healthcare Solutions, Inc.

iECURE: George A. Diaz was named VO and therapeutic area lead for urea cycle disorders. Diaz most recently served as chief of the Division of Medical Genetics and Professor in the Departments of Genetics & Genomic Sciences and Pediatrics at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.