This week’s Movers & Shakers includes Tessa and Adial bringing in new CEOs, while other companies strengthened their regulatory and medical teams with key appointments
Biopharma companies are making big changes as they move deeper into the second half of the year. Tessa Therapeutics and Adial Pharmaceuticals brought in new CEOs, while other companies strengthened their regulatory and medical teams with key appointments.
Tessera Therapeutics: Fresh off her role from bluebird bio, where she helped shepherd Zynteglo, a gene therapy for beta-thalassemia, through regulatory approval, Anne-Virginie Eggimann has joined Tessera Therapeutics as chief regulatory officer. She will be responsible for leading U.S. and global regulatory science and program and portfolio management for the company’s GENE WRITING development programs. Eggimann spent 11 years at bluebird, with her most recent role as chief regulatory officer. She has contributed to shaping U.S. regulatory policy for advanced therapies as chair of the Regulatory Committee of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) and is currently co-chair of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) Regenerative Medicine Committee. In addition to Eggimann’s appointment, Tessera appointed former CVS Health and Eli Lilly executive Derica Rice to its board of directors.
Celsius Therapeutics: Sarah Grant was appointed chief medical officer of Celsius Therapeutics. Grant will lead the company’s clinical strategy and development of its pipeline of therapies for autoimmune disease and cancer. Prior to Celsius, Grant spent nine years at Novartis in multiple senior leadership roles, most recently as the chief of staff and strategic assistant for the head of global drug development. Previously at Novartis, she was head of respiratory discovery within translational medicine. Before Novartis, Grant was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and an attending physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Tessa Therapeutics: Singapore-based Tessa Therapeutics Ltd. tapped Thomas Willemsen as its president and chief executive officer. Willemsen takes on his new role on Oct. 1. Willemsen joins Tessa from Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where he served as senior vice president, Asia Pacific, leading the transformation of Takeda across 10 markets and enhancing its focus on rare and genetic diseases, oncology, and vaccines. Before Takeda, Willemsen held the V.P. of oncology at GlaxoSmithKline for its Intercontinental & Emerging Markets business. Prior to that, Willemsen served as chairman and general manager for GSK in China and as general manager of GSK Taiwan. He also spent 12 years with Merck KGaA in various commercial and regional roles in the Asia Pacific region and as the head of its German oncology business unit.
Adial Pharmaceuticals: Cary J. Claiborne was named president and CEO. He takes over from William Stilley, who was appointed to the newly created position of CEO of Purnovate, Inc. Both executives will remain on the board of directors of Adial. Claiborne was appointed chief operating officer of Adial in December 2021 after being named to the board of directors. Most recently, Claiborne served as CFO and director of Indivior PLC. Prior to joining Indivior, Claiborne served as the CFO of Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Before joining Sucampo, Claiborne served as CFO and corporate secretary of Osiris Therapeutics, Inc.
Vektor Medical: Tim Laird was named vice president of sales, and Kathryn Wilamowski was named senior manager of quality systems. Before joining Vektor Medical, Laird was vice president of sales in North America for Implicity, and before that, he held sales leadership roles at LivaNova and Biosense Webster. Wilamowski joins Vektor after serving as a manager of design quality at Terumo Cardiovascular Group.
Frontier Medicines: Mark Dizon was named general counsel of Bay Area-based Frontier Medicines Corporation. Prior to joining Frontier, Dizon was the assistant general counsel and chief compliance officer at BeiGene, Ltd. Prior to BeiGene, Dizon served in various legal leadership roles at both large pharmaceuticals and small biotechs, such as Chiron, Novartis, Affymax, Actelion, Relypsa and Prothena Biosciences.
Elevar Therapeutics: Wade Smith was named chief financial officer of Elevar. Smith enters the role after serving as Elevar’s vice president of finance since January. Smith joined Elevar after spending the previous decade at Viatris, formerly known as Mylan Pharmaceuticals. At Viatris, he was head of U.S. institutional commercial/finance from 2017-2022, functioning as the chief operating officer and CFO.
CDR-Life Inc.: Swethajit Biswas was named chief medical officer. Prior to joining CDR-Life, Biswas was a development leader for MAGE-A4+ autologous cell therapies at Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc. Before that, he served as a clinical director in oncology drug development at GlaxoSmithKline Oncology, U.K. Biswas previously worked as a National Health Service consultant in the U.K. He also held an academic position as a clinical senior lecturer in medical oncology at Newcastle University’s Northern Institute for Cancer Research.
Mythic Therapeutics: Gilles Gallant was named chief development officer of Mythic. Gallant joins Mythic from Daiichi Sankyo, where he was SVP global head of oncology clinical development and led the development of the company’s global oncology portfolio. Gallant previously held leadership roles in clinical oncology at Bristol Myers Squibb, Human Genome Sciences and BioMarin. The company also announced that Mythic co-founder and CEO Alex Nichols has transitioned to pursue new opportunities. The Mythic Board of Directors initiated a search for Nichols’ successor. In the interim, Brian Fiske, co-founder and chief scientific officer and Sandra Poole, chief operating officer, and Gallant have assumed responsibilities for the company’s operational management.
Discovery Life Sciences: Michael Pisano was named executive vice president of proteomics. Before joining Discovery, Pisano served as vice president of business development and contract research at Cayman Chemical. Previously, he held senior management positions in various life science companies.
Brii Biosciences: Brii appointed Eleanor de Groot as chief technology officer and Aleksandar Skuban as central nervous system diseases therapy area head. de Groot held key leadership roles during her career with Alaunos Therapeutics, most recently serving as executive vice president of operations. Previously, she held positions at Helsinn Therapeutics. Skuban served as SVP of clinical development at Better Therapeutics. Before that, he served as an executive medical director leading clinical development within Alexion’s emerging ophthalmology therapeutic area. Skuban also held several clinical development director roles at Merck and Sanofi-Aventis.
Kyverna Therapeutics: Cell therapy expert Tom Van Blarcom was named SVP and head of research. He replaces Kyverna’s scientific co-founder Jeffrey Greve, who served as chief scientific officer since the company’s inception in 2018. Van Blarcom joins Kyverna from Allogene Therapeutics, where he most recently served as head of protein engineering and research operation. Before Allogene, Van Blarcom held several roles of increasing responsibility at Pfizer and was involved in their initial work on allogeneic CAR T cells that is now part of Allogene. He also spent time at Amgen, where he began his industry career. Additionally, the company tapped Georg Schett, VP of research at Friedrich-Alexander University, and Peter A. Merkel, chief of rheumatology and professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, to its scientific advisory board.
Zealand Pharma A/S: Henriette Wennicke was tapped as CFO and will begin her role on Nov. 1. Wennicke is currently the vice president and head of investor relations and treasury at G.N. Store Nord, a global leader in intelligent audio solutions.
