This week’s Movers & Shakers include Arvinas, Inspire and Cambridge Isotope Laboratories all announcing new VP roles, and several others tap new C-suite executives.
Arvinas, Inspire, Stand Up To Cancer, Cullinan Oncology, and several others tap new chief operations officers and heads of finance. Some of these Movers & Shakers also receive peer acknowledgment for their work.
Below is this week’s roundup of new executive appointments.
Arvinas, Inc. – Lisa Sinclair was named senior vice president of corporate operations at Connecticut-based Arvinas.
She recently served as head of corporate and commercial strategy at Rallybio and previously served as head of program and alliance management for SpringWorks Therapeutics. Sinclair also served as vice president of R&D strategy and portfolio and project management at Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease, and VP of global R&D portfolio and performance at AstraZeneca. She also spent 18 years at Pfizer in various roles of increasing responsibility in R&D and commercial.
Nuvig Therapeutics – Privately-held Nuvig named Joanne Quan as chief medical officer.
Prior to Nuvig, Quan was CMO at Modis Therapeutics. Before Modis, she held positions of increasing responsibility at Eiger Biopharmaceuticals, InterMune, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Bayhill Therapeutics, ALZA Corporation, Genentech and PathoGenesis.
Inspire Medical Systems – Ezgi Yagci was named vice president of investor relations.
Yagci joins Inspire from Zimmer Biomet, where she has served as investor relations manager since July 2020. She also held roles at several investment firms, including Balyasny Asset Management, Green Arrow Capital Management (Millennium Management), TIAA-CREF, Partner Fund Management and RS Investments.
Cambridge Isotope Laboratories – John Bakke joined Cambridge Isotope Laboratories as vice president of finance.
Bakke has most recently been working as a director for Danforth Advisors assisting biotech and pharmaceutical clients to manage and grow their business. Before Danforth, John spent over 22 years with Charles River Laboratories working in various finance roles.
Stand Up To Cancer – Stephanie Herron was named the first chief development officer of Stand Up To Cancer, a charitable group that raises funds for oncology research.
Since 2018, she has served as senior vice president of enterprise digital and innovation at ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Before ALSAC, Herron was the chief development officer at Shriners Hospitals for Children, where she led integrated marketing and fundraising initiatives.
Cullinan Oncology – Jacquelyn Sumer was named chief legal officer of Cullinan Oncology.
Sumer served as chief legal and compliance officer at Genocea Biosciences in her most recent role. Before that, she was assistant general counsel at Bristol Myers Squibb, where she led the worldwide hematology and cell therapy legal team, following as head of Celgene Corporation’s CAR T legal team. Sumer began her legal career at Kaye Scholer, LLP.
SANUWAVE Inc. – Toni Rinow was named chief financial officer of the next-generation wound care company.
Before joining SANUWAVE, Rinow led healthcare organizations as general manager at global nuclear medicine leader Jubilant Draximage Inc. and as a chief operating officer at Isologic Innovative Radiopharmaceuticals.
Innovation Endeavors – Joel Dudley joined the early-stage venture capital firm as a partner.
Dudley joins Innovation Endeavors from Tempus Labs, Inc., where he served as chief scientific officer. Before Tempus, Dudley was the associate professor of genetics and genomic sciences and founding director of the Institute for Next Generation Healthcare at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Foresite Labs – Uplaksh Kumar, a cofounder of RoosterBio, was named COO of Foresite.
Kumar will aim to position Foresite Labs as a large data-generating and healthcare product-developing enterprise. He will also serve as a venture partner at Foresite Capital, identifying and supporting investments. Before joining Foresite, Kumar was the SVP of strategic operations and scale of GRAIL. Before his role at GRAIL, Kumar was Verily’s first head of operations. He has held various leadership positions at Life Technologies, BD, LONZA, and Qiagen.
Rentschler Biopharma – Germany-based Rentschler tapped Mark Caswell as vice president and site head.
Caswell is managing all operations at the company’s U.S. facilities in Milford, Mass., including the completion of the new state-of-the-art Rentschler Biopharma Manufacturing Center adjacent to the existing site. Before joining Rentschler Biopharma, he worked for over six years at Lonza Biologicals, most recently as head of Operations at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire site. Before that, he worked at Sanofi Genzyme in positions of increasing responsibility, most recently as director of global engineering and technology.
Portage Biotech – Ian Walters, chief executive officer of Portage, was named chairman of the company’s board of directors.
He replaces Greg Bailey, who will transition to the role of director. Additionally, the company hired Justin Fairchild as vice president of development. Fairchild previously served as VP of clinical development at The Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy.
Biofrontera Inc. – Leslie Hopkins, associate director of marketing for Biofrontera, was named a “Trailblazer Brand Champion” in the dermatology category by PM360, a publication for marketing decision makers in the pharmaceutical, biotech, diagnostics and medical device industries.
