Homology Medicines and MiMedx both posted new CEOs. Other C-suite positions, including CFOs and CMOs were also filled this week.
There were several significant leadership changes across the biopharma and life sciences industries, with Homology Medicines and MiMedx posting new CEOs in the year’s second half.
Homology Medicines – Albert Seymour was named president and chief executive officer. He succeeds Arthur Tzianabos, appointed chairperson of the board of directors. Tzianabos and Dr. Seymour joined Homology in 2016 as CEO and chief scientific officer, respectively. Before Homology, Seymour was the senior vice president and head of global research and nonclinical development at Shire plc. Prior to that, he spent 14 years at Pfizer.
GlycoMimetics Inc. – Edwin Rock was appointed chief medical officer. He most recently served as CMO for Partner Therapeutics, privately-held commercial-stage biotech based in Massachusetts. Before that, he served as head of clinical research at Macrogenics. He previously served in clinical development leadership roles at Astex Pharmaceuticals, Otsuka, and GSK, leading clinical trial programs for drug candidates across hematology and oncology. Early in his career, he was a medical officer in oncology drug review at the FDA.
Evolve Biologics – Chris Carr was named chief financial officer and will be responsible for all finance and accounting functions. He previously served as CFO of Aeon Biopharma and, before that, was head of finance and IT at Dendreon Pharmaceuticals. He also held financial management positions with Abbott Laboratories, PerkinElmer, and the Genzyme Corporation.
MiMedx Group – K. Todd Newton, a member of the company board of directors, has been appointed interim CEO. He replaced Timothy R. Wright, who served as MiMedx’s CEO since May of 2019. The Board has appointed a special committee to direct the search for a new CEO.
Instil Bio, Inc. – Texas-based Instil tapped Tim Moore for the role of chief operating officer. Moore has more than three decades of leadership experience in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and operations, including at Genentech, Kite and most recently, PACT Pharma, where he was president and COO. Before joining PACT, he served as head of technical operations at Kite, a Gilead Sciences company. Before Kite, he was head of global technical operations for biologics at Genentech.
hC Biosciences, Inc. – Based in Cambridge, Mass., hC Biosciences named Yosef Landesman as CSO and Gautam Goel as chief data science officer. Landesman previously served as senior vice president of research and translational medicine at Karyopharm Therapeutics. Before that, he was at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Goel most recently helmed an inter-disciplinary R&D/consulting practice. Prior to this position, Goel was director of precision medicine at ImmusanT.
IBRI – The Indiana Biosciences Research Institute named Michele Sawyer as its new CFO. Most recently, Sawyer served as the executive director/general auditor of corporate audit services at Elanco Animal Health, a division of Eli Lilly. Before that, she was COO of the nutritional health business unit with Elanco. During her 18 years at Eli Lilly & Company, Sawyer served in many leadership roles, including controller of Lilly Research Lab’s Development Center of Excellence.
Zenas BioPharma – Simon Lowry was named CMO of the Sino-American Zenas. Prior to joining Zenas, Lowry was CMO at Kinevant Science, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on treating rare inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Lowry was previously head of immunology R&D at Roivant Sciences. He also served as CMO at Sun Pharma North America. Early in his career, he worked at Novartis, where he served as vice president of global medical affairs franchise head of immunology & dermatology. He also held multiple leadership roles at Pfizer.
Nitrase Therapeutics – Arun K. Kashyap was appointed to the newly-created role of senior vice president of oncology. Kashyap was previously the vice president of research at Arch Oncology, where he directed the strategy and operations of discovery and preclinical drug development. At Dren Bio, Kashyap was a senior member of the founding scientific team responsible for leading the research department in discovering and validating antibody targets. He served in a similar capacity at Compugen.
High Q Technologies – Life sciences tool manufacturer High Q named Andrew Wiles as vice president of R&D. Before High Q, Wiles was director of R&D at NDI, overseeing new product development, early-stage technology research, and sustaining engineering for in-market products.
Garuda Therapeutics – Roger Sawhney was named CFO of Garuda. Prior to joining the company, he served as both CFO and chief business officer of Omega Therapeutics. Before Omega, Sawhney served in various roles, including partner at Bain Capital and Boston Consulting Group. He was also a Director at KKR in health care private equity and growth equity investing and senior vice president and global head of corporate strategy at Novartis.
Ocugen, Inc. – Pennsylvania-based Ocugen tapped Robert J. Hopkins as chief medical officer. Also, Arun Upadhyay, who served as SVP of R&D, was named CSO. Hopkins has held senior level positions at Merck Research Labs, DynPort Vaccine Company, Emergent BioSolutions, and Aeras. Before joining Ocugen, he was the CMO at Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, overseeing regulatory affairs, clinical development, and clinical operations. Before joining Ocugen, Upadhyay led ophthalmic drug development and delivery research at the University of Colorado Denver in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Merck – George Addona was named SVP and head of discovery, preclinical and translational medicine at Merck Research Laboratories. Addona will oversee the early-stage pipeline, early human studies and biomarker development. Since joining Merck in 2008, Addona has held positions of increasing responsibility across the company’s pharmacology organization. Most recently, he was VP of quantitative biosciences. Before leading QB, Addona directed company teams in Boston, Singapore and South San Francisco. Prior to joining Merck, Addona held roles of increasing responsibility at Novartis and Praecis Pharmaceuticals.
Sanford Burnham Prebys – David Brenner was appointed to serve as the institute’s next president and CEO. Brenner joins Sanford Burnham Prebys following more than 15 years as vice chancellor for Health Sciences at UC San Diego. He will assume his new role effective Sept. 14.
Exscientia Ltd. – Caroline Rowland was named chief people officer of Exscientia, a newly-created role for the U.K.-based AI company. Prior to joining the company, she served as the VP of talent at Arm, a leading technology company in the U.K. and the world’s largest provider of semiconductors. She also held roles with Diageo and Deloitte.
Longhorn Vaccines and Diagnostics – Zoe Silver was named SVP of genomics and diagnostics. He most recently served as SVP of genomics and diagnostics at SiO2 with similar roles in marketing at Tecan and BSN Medical and in marketing leadership roles at White Hot Pizza and Ben & Jerry’s.
