Biopharma and life sciences companies strengthen their leadership teams and board with these Movers & Shakers.
Krystal Biotech – Whitney Ijem was tapped to serve as the first Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development at Krystal Biotech. Ijem joins Krystal from Guggenheim Securities, where she served as Managing Director and Senior Biotechnology Analyst covering genetic medicine and rare disease companies. Prior to joining Guggenheim, Ijem was a therapeutics analyst at Tourbillon Capital and before that she was an analyst in the J.P. Morgan Equity Research Healthcare group focused on biotechnology.
Viroclinics Biosciences – Netherlands-based Viroclinics Bioscience B.V.named Davide Molho as its new chief executive officer. Molho succeeds Bob van Gemen, who has served as the company’s CEO since 2011. This transition is part of a planned succession strategy. Molho’s appointment takes effect on Aug. 1. Molho joins Viroclinics from Evolution Research Group, where he served as CEO. Prior to ERG, he worked for almost two decades at Charles River Laboratories, most recently serving as president and chief operating officer of the global organization. As CEO of Viroclinics, Molho will lead the company through its next phase of growth with a specific focus on driving revenue diversification in adjacent and novel therapeutic fields, as well as continued strategic expansion through acquisitions.
Windtree Therapeutics – John Hamill has been appointed chief financial officer of Pennsylvania-based Windtree Therapeutics. In this role, Hamill will help accelerate key initiatives to advance the company’s business, financial planning and shareholder value. Hamill is replacing Windtree’s former CFO, John Tattory who is leaving to pursue other opportunities. He most recently provided consulting services to various life science companies, headed up finance at Trevena, Inc., Savient Pharmaceuticals and PharmaNet.
Kronos Bio – Barbara Kosacz was named chief operating officer and general counsel of California-based Kronos Bio. Kosacz joins the company with more than 25 years of experience providing strategic and legal advice to life sciences companies, and served most recently as international head of Cooley LLP’s Life Sciences Practice. In her role at Kronos, she will be responsible for internal operations and legal functions within the Company. Kosacz is a member of the Board of Directors of XOMA Corporation and is on the Board of Trustees of the Keck Graduate Institute.
Akcea Therapeutics – Christophe Hotermans was named senior vice president of global medical affairs at Akcea Therapeutics. In this role, he will lead and evolve the execution of medical strategies, activities and operations worldwide in collaboration with executive management. Prior to joining Akcea, Hotermans served at Biogen for more than a decade in various roles, most recently as vice president and head of U.S. medical. Before Biogen, he was chief of the neurology clinic at the University of Liège in Belgium.
ImmunoGen -- Susan Altschuller has been appointed senior vice president and CFO of ImmunoGen, Inc. Altschuller has 20 years of financial management, investor relations, and business planning experience with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. She joins ImmunoGen from Alexion Pharmaceuticals where she started as Head of Investor Relations before moving to Head of Enterprise Finance, where she led global financial reporting and provided counsel on investment prioritization to support the company’s strategic imperatives. Before Alexion, Altschuller was head of Investor Relations at Bioverativ. Early in her career, Altschuller held positions at Biogen in various functions of increasing responsibility, including investor relations, corporate finance, and commercial finance.
Signifier Medical Technologies – Signifier made two key appointments, Matt Sharris as vice president of Sales in North America and Steve Saunders, as head of Sales in EMEA. These appointments follow the company strategy to drive and maximize commercial footprint later into the year in their respective geographies. Sharris was most recently director of Sales and vice president of Payor relations for Regional Home Care, with prior roles within account management and sales for ResMed. Saunders joins Signifier from Philips Respironics, where he held leadership and commercial roles, and worked as a liaison to the U.K. government during the early stages of the COVID crisis. Prior roles have included Sales and Marketing positions for a range of medical technology companies including GE, Siemens, and others.
Qkine – U.K.-based Qkine expanded its leadership team with the appointments of Rob Nixon as head of Commercial and Cassie Doherty, Investment Director at Parkwalk, as a new member of the board of directors. Nixon joins after having worked for both world-leading global life science reagent companies Merck Millipore and GE Healthcare Life Science, as well as emerging, fast-growing start-up Jellagen.
Adverum Biotechnologies – Thomas Kochy joined the company as vice president, commercial and program strategy. In this new position, Kochy will be responsible for leading commercial planning, product strategy, and program management. Prior to joining Adverum, Kochy served as a strategy consultant in ocular disease areas. Before that, Kochy worked at Genentech from 2004 to 2019, most recently as regional sales director for Actemra and Rituxan Immunology. He also led ophthalmology pipeline strategy and worked on Lucentis.
Homology Medicines– Jeff Poulton, CFO of Alnylam, was appointed to the board of directors of Homology Medicines. Poulton brings 25 years of experience to Homology’s Board of Directors, including leading finance, business development and commercial operations at companies using differentiated technologies to develop treatments for patients with rare diseases. Prior to his role at Alnylam, Poulton served as CFO at Indigo Agriculture. He previously held various roles of increasing responsibility at Shire Plc, concluding his service as CFO and a member of its executive committee and board of directors.
Cradle Genomics – San Diego-based Cradle Genomics expanded its executive team with the additions of Tanya Moreno, as Vice President of Development and Sue Gross, as Chief Medical Officer. Moreno has over 13 years of experience in diagnostics development and the commercialization of genomic tests. Gross has had a distinguished clinical career with roles at Montefiore Einstein, Natera where she was CMO, and most recently at Mount Sinai Hospital and Sema4 where she was the Medical Director for the Reproductive Lab and Clinical Analysis Division.
Parexel – Parexel announced the addition of former regulators with significant expertise in oncology, immunotherapy and rare disease to its Regulatory and Access Consulting team. Yajie Li recently served as Head of Compound Strategy and Pipeline Management Function at Xuanzhu Pharma. Prior to that, she served at Janssen as the Regulatory Affairs Therapeutic Area Director for Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, China Companion Diagnostic Team Leader and the China Compound Team Leader.
Jorge Camarero served at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in The Netherlands as an alternate member of the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) and as a member the Oncology Working Party. Prior to his tenure at the EMA, he was Head of the Oncology Area for the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices, a Pharmaceutical Inspector for the Spanish Government’s Health Department delegation; and a Regulatory Clinical Assessor in Oncology for Spanish Agency for the AEMPS. Lucas Kempf held multiple positions at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Replimune Group – Andrea Pirzkall will assume the role of CMO on Aug. 31 at Replimune Group. Pirzkall will lead clinical development of Replimune’s pipeline of next-generation oncolytic immuno-gene therapies for the treatment of cancer. Prior to joining Replimune, Pirzkall served as Executive Director of Clinical Development at BeiGene. She served also as the global clinical development lead on the BeiGene/Celgene joint development committee. Prior to BeiGene, Pirzkall was a Principal Medical Director at Genentech.
ZIOPHARM Oncology – James Huang was named to the company’s board of directors. Huang is currently a Managing Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) China and has founded and financed several innovative life sciences companies, including GenScript, Legend Biotech and Zai Lab. He is also Founding Partner of Panacea Venture, which formed TriArm Therapeutics, the funding partner for Ziopharm’s joint venture, Eden BioCell.
Adaptate Biotherapeutics -- Adaptate Biotherapeutics formed its Scientific Advisory Board.Adrian Hayday will chair the expert team with other key appointments including Gillian Griffiths, John Haurum, Jessica Strid and Sally Ward.
Xilio Therapeutics – Paul J. Clancy was named to the Xilio Therapeutics Board of Directors. He currently serves on the boards of Agios Pharmaceuticals and Incyte Corporation. Clancy was CFO for Alexion Pharmaceuticals from July 2017 to October 2019. Prior to that, Clancy was CFO of Biogen.
Cradle Genomics – Cradle Genomics expanded its executive team with the additions of Tanya Moreno, as vice president of Development and Sue Gross, as CMO. Moreno has over 13 years of experience in diagnostics development and the commercialization of genomic tests. As the head of clinical sciences, in multiple clinical laboratories, she has led development programs across a broad range of advanced genomic tools to empower patients and physicians with precision medicine. Gross has had a distinguished clinical career with roles at Montefiore Einstein where she was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics and Genetics and most recently at Mount Sinai Hospital and Sema4 where she was the Medical Director for the Reproductive Lab and Clinical Analysis Division.
