Biopharma and life sciences companies strengthen their leadership teams and boards with these Movers & Shakers.
Biopharma and life sciences companies set the course for a new year with the appointment of these Movers & Shakers.
Entrada Therapeutics – Jared Cohen has been named general counsel of Entrada Therapeutics. Prior to joining Entrada in April 2020, Cohen was Vice President of Legal Affairs at Repertoire Immune Medicines. Before Repertoire, Cohen held a variety of leadership roles in the biopharmaceutical field, including Alexion Pharmaceuticals, The Jackson Laboratory, MedImmune/AstraZeneca, Human Genome Sciences, and Finnegan Henderson.
GPB Scientific – Guarav Vij and Joan Happ were added to the GPB leadership team. Vij will serve as the company’s first chief business officer, and Haab was named first senior vice president of Manufacturing and Supply Chain Operations. Vij comes to GPB after leading business development for Precigen. Previously, he held similar corporate development roles at Gilead Sciences, Amgen, and Shire Pharmaceuticals. Haab was previously vice president of Manufacturing & Technical Operations for GenMark Diagnostics and Executive Director of Technical Operations for Cepheid at Danaher.
Rani Therapeutics – Lisa Rometty was appointed to the board of directors. Rometty currently serves as president of CVS Kidney Care, a CVS Health start-up. Prior to her role at CVS Health, Ms. Rometty served as President, Global Client Solutions at Syneos Health. Before Syneos, she held roles as chief commercial officer and General Manager, Oncology & Life Sciences at IBM Watson Health Solutions. Earlier in her career, Ms. Rometty held leadership roles with Baxter Healthcare and General Electric.
Caris Life Sciences – Rob Clark was named chief communications officer at Caris. Clark joins Caris from ExxonMobil, where he served as head of Global Communications. Prior to his time at ExxonMobil, Clark led the global corporate communications and marketing functions as CCO of Medtronic.
Xilio Therapeutics – yuan Xu was appointed to the board of directors. Xu most recently served as chief executive officer of Legend Biotech from March 2018 until August 2020. Prior to Legend Biotech, Xu served as senior vice president at Merck & Co., Inc. from August 2015 to August 2017. Xu also served as general manager and vice president of biologics at Gilead Sciences, Inc. from March 2014 to August 2015. Prior to Gilead, Xu served as vice president at Novartis and led several functions in the U.S. and Europe. Earlier in her career, Dr. Xu held positions of increasing responsibility at Amgen Inc., Chiron, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Genentech Inc.
Singular Genomics – Singular Genomics added Elaine Mardis to its board of directors. Since 2016, Mardis has served as co-executive director of the Institute of Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. She is also a professor of pediatrics at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Mardis serves on the Supervisory Board, Science and Technology Committee, and the Compensation and Human Resources Committee at Qiagen.
Merck – Marc Levesque was named vice president of Immunology Discovery & Head of Cambridge Exploratory Science Center. Levesque will lead the new Immunology Discovery therapeutic area and the Exploratory Science Center, and will also have oversight of the expanded Cambridge facility. Prior to this role, Levesque was senior director of Immunology at AbbVie. Before that, he was Medical Director, Immunology Clinical Development at AbbVie. Prior to Abbvie, Levesque spent 14 years as a faculty member first at Duke University Medical Center and then at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Autolus Therapeutics – Andrew J. Oakley will retire as chief financial officer in 2022. Lucinda Crabtree will assume responsibility for the role. Crabtree joined Autolus in January 2020 and currently serves as senior vice president of Finance. Her prior roles included vice president of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications and more recently she was heading up Business Strategy and Planning. Prior to her time at Autolus, Lucinda’s broad experience includes roles on the buy and the sell side, including as a senior investment analyst and in specialist sales.
Foghorn Therapeutics – Steven Bellon, current senior vice president of drug discovery, was promoted to chief scientific officer. Carl Decicco is retiring from his role as CSO. Bellon joined Foghorn Therapeutics in 2016 as head of drug discovery. Prior to Foghorn, Bellon was executive director and head of structural biology, and lead discovery and project management at Constellation Pharmaceuticals. Before Constellation, he held positions of increasing responsibility at Amgen and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
EyePoint Pharmaceuticals – Michael C. Pine was named chief corporate development and strategy officer. Most recently, Pine was a senior vice president of Business Development and Strategy at Medexus Pharmaceuticals. Pine held roles of increasing responsibility at Lupin Pharmaceuticals, Aralez Pharmaceuticals, and Novartis Pharmaceuticals, where he spent over eight years building. Earlier in his career, Pine was in business development roles at Kos Pharmaceuticals, Organon Biosciences, and Pfizer, as well as an Investment Banking Analyst at JP Morgan Chase.
Poseida Therapeutics – Eric Ostertag, founder and current CEO of Poseida, was appointed Executive Chairman and current president and CBO Mark Gergen was appointed CEO. Gergen joined Poseida in February 2018, serving as CBO and CFO before being appointed president and Chief Business Officer in July 2020. Before joining Poseida, he held key leadership roles including that of senior vice president and chief operating officer of Halozyme, Inc., COO at Mirati Therapeutics, Inc. and as head of Corporate Development at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He has also served in senior management positions at CardioNet Inc., Advanced Tissue Sciences, Inc., and Medtronic, Inc. Both Ostertag and Gergen will continue to serve as members of the Company’s Board of Directors.
Madrigal Pharmaceuticals – Dominic F. Labriola joined Madrigal as chief data and analytics officer. Labriola spent more than 20 years at Bristol Myers Squibb as Head of Global Biometric Sciences. Prior to joining Bristol Myers Squibb, he held positions of increasing responsibility at DuPont Pharmaceutical Company, managing biostatisticians and programmers for multiple therapeutic areas.
Annovis Bio – Eve Damiano was named head of Regulatory Operations. Damiano has held various senior management positions throughout her career, with experience garnered at companies including Centocor, MedImmune, OraSure Technologies, and Vicuron Pharmaceuticals. Cheng Fang was also promoted to head of R&D.
TISSIUM – France’s TISSIUM tapped Ruth Krestin as vice president of Portfolio Strategy. Krestin comes from AstraZeneca, where she worked in various strategic executive roles spanning the R&D and Commercial organizations. Most recently, she was the Competitive Intelligence Director, CVRM. Prior to AstraZeneca, she spent five years in consulting at PwC.
Bluestar Genomics – David Mullarkey was named CEO of Bluestar. Current acting chief executive officer and chief scientific officer Samuel Levy will continue in his role as CSO. Mullarkey was most recently president and CEO of Omniome. Prior to Omniome, Mullarkey served as the president and chief operating officer of Ariosa Diagnostics. Post-acquisition, Mullarkey led the integration of the Ariosa business and served as a global lifecycle leader. He has also held leadership positions at Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Company, Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Dow Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Currax Pharmaceuticals – Michael Kyle was named CMO. Kyle will have responsibility for Currax’s regulatory, medical affairs, clinical development/operations, as well as the pharmacovigilance organization for the company. Prior to joining Currax, Kyle was the Head of Development at Jiangsu HengRui Pharmaceuticals, and before that he held various roles in both clinical development and medical affairs at Pfizer, including: U.S. Medical Director of Established Products, Medical Affairs; Chief Medical Officer, Pfizer Consumer Health; and Vice President, Head of Global Clinical Services and Operations of Upjohn.
NeuBase Therapeutics – Todd P. Branning was named CFO. Prior to joining NeuBase, Branning was CFO of Phathom Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Before that, he was CFO of Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to joining Amneal, he was CFO of the global generic medicines division at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries. Branning has also held financial leadership roles at Allergan plc, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, PPG Industries, Inc., and Merck & Co., Inc.
AlivaMab Discovery Services – Jane Seagal was named vice president of Antibody Discovery at AlivaMab. Seagal joins ADS from AbbVie where she headed the in vivo antibody discovery group, led projects across diverse therapeutic areas including oncology, immunology and virology, and chaired a cross-functional team of scientists responsible for biologics discovery and screening funnel strategies.
AliveCor – California-based AliveCor expanded its leadership team. Vincent Balsamo was named head of Worldwide Sales, Archan Dubey was named chief clinical officer, Ben Green was named SVP of Services and Jessica Weinstein was named head of Marketing. Balsamo previously served as Vice President of Sales overseeing the Marketing Cloud Payor business at Salesforce. Dubey spent the last six years as Global Medical Director at HP. Green spent the last four years at Amazon as the founding CMO for Amazon’s first pursuit into health care delivery, Amazon Care, and later as the Principal of Healthcare Innovation for Global Benefits. Weinstein has held several global leadership positions in consumer healthcare at Reckitt and GSK.
TCR2 Therapeutics – Rosemary Harrison was named chief business and strategy officer at TCR2 Therapeutics. Prior to joining the company, she was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at Trillium Therapeutics. Before that, Harrison served in strategic and research roles within RA Capital Management and as Head of Rare Diseases at Imbria Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in her career, she was Head of Portfolio Management and Strategic Planning at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research as well as a consultant at Bain & Company.
PTC Therapeutics – PTC Therapeutics appointed new members of its leadership team. Matthew Klein was named chief development officer and Lee Golden was appointed CMO. Klein currently served as chief operating officer at PTC Therapeutics. He joined PTC in 2019 as Global Head of Gene & Mitochondrial Therapies and most recently, held the role of Chief Development Officer. Prior to joining PTC, Klein was CEO and CMO of BioElectron Technology Corporation. Prior to joining BioElectron, Klein was the Auth-Washington Research Foundation Chair of Restorative Burn Surgery at the University of Washington. Golden is CMO at PTC Therapeutics. Prior to joining PTC, Golden served as the CMO at Espero BioPharma. Prior to his tenure there, he served as the CMO at Gemphire Therapeutics.
BiVACOR – Australia’s BiVACOR named Thomas Vassiliades as CEO. Vassiliades was most recently the General Manager of the Surgery and Heart Failure Business at Abiomed.
Codagenix, Inc. – Bruce Taillon was named head of Animal Health. Prior to Codagenix, Taillon served as Senior Director of External Innovation & Business Development of Elanco Animal Health. Previously, he was Global Head, Business & Product Development, at Enzo Life Sciences and Director of Technology and Director of HealthCare Business Development at 454 Life Sciences.
