BioSpace Movers & Shakers, April 10

Immunomedics – Ipsen and Novartis veteran Harout Semerjian was named president and chief executive officer of Immunomedics. He assumes the role on April 16. Semerjian is a global pharmaceutical veteran with 25 years of experience in life sciences. Most recently, he served as executive vice president and Chief Commercial Officer at Ipsen where he was accountable for the worldwide commercialization and portfolio strategy across oncology, neurosciences and rare diseases, as well as leading specialty operations across Europe and International markets, overseeing 2,200 employees in over 30 countries. Before Ipsen, Semerjian spent 16 years at Novartis Oncology where he held various worldwide strategic and operational positions. Additionally, the company announced Scott Canute will step down from his role as executive director and resume his role as member of the board of directors.

Polyneuron Pharmaceuticals – Switzerland-based Polyneuron named Debra Barker as chief medical officer. Most recently Barker was Chief Medical and Development Officer of Polyphor and prior to that, Barker held several senior roles at Novartis, including positions in oncology and infectious disease & immunology. She has also held several positions at Roche, including designing clinical studies for immunology drug development. She is currently on the board of the anti-infectives company Destiny Pharma and BerGenBio, an immuno-oncology company based in Norway.

Innovation – Marvin Richardson will become CEO of Innovation on April 25. Richardson replaces Mary Reno, who has served as CEO since 1998. Reno will continue to serve on the company’s board of directors as chairwoman emeritus. Richardson has served as co-president since December 2019. Richardson is a 37-year veteran of pharmacy and health care, and an established entrepreneur, having co-founded Capstone Consulting LLC. Prior companies founded and co-owned by Richardson include Low Cost Health Care, PrairieStone Pharmacies, and DailyMed, a compliance packaging company. Richardson has also worked as a corporate leader with Rite Aid and Walgreens, where he began his pharmacy career. Innovation also announced that co-president Tom Boyer would assume the role of chief strategy officer for the company. Boyer will lead Innovation’s strategy initiatives by formulating and communicating company goals, and developing the plans and coordination with Innovation customers and industry partners to advance the company’s position of industry leadership.

POINT Biopharma – Toronto-based POINT formed a global prostate oncology therapeutic advisory board. Members include: Board Chair Kim Chi, senior research scientist at Vancouver Prostate Centre; Dr. Johannes Czernin, chief of Ahmanson Translational Theranostics Division, Nuclear Medicine; Dr. Ur Metser, division head of Molecular Imaging at Princess Margaret Hospital; Dr. Scott Tagawa, medical oncologist with a specialty in Genitourinary Oncology; Dr. Vikas Prasad, deputy director of the Department of Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital of Ulm; and Dr. Oliver Sartor, medical director of Tulane Cancer Center.

Kyowa Kirin – Gary Zieuziela was named president of the company’s North American operations. Zieziula has held key roles at top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies across Europe and North America, including his most recent role as president at EMD Serono, North America. Zieziula previously held senior commercial and sales leadership roles at AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Roche, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Merck & Co.

H.E.L. Group -- Kevin O’Donovan was named chairman of the H.E.L Board of Directors. He takes over from interim Chair, Jon Andrew. Previously, O’Donovan founded the molecular biology instrumentation company, Hybaid.

GlycoMimetics -- Veteran regulatory expert Myra Rosario Herrle joined the company as vice president of Regulatory Affairs. Most recently, she served as senior director of Oncology Global Regulatory Strategy at AbbVie. Previously, she held positions of increasing responsibility at Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline.

Sophia Genetics -- Lara Hashimoto was named chief business officer and will be responsible for Marketing, Product Management and Business Development. Her most recent position before joining SOPHiA GENETICS was CCO for Roche Sequencing Solutions.

Oncoceutics – CEO Wolfgang Oster, a company co-founder, departed Oncoceutics effective April 3 as part of a leadership change. He also stepped down from the board of directors. Lee Schalop, the company’s COO, is now CEO. Martin Stogniew, remains the company’s chief development officer and Josh Allen, the company’s head of R&D, is now the company’s chief scientific officer.

Ossio – J&J veteran Gary J. Pruden was named to the board of directors of orthopedic company Ossio. Pruden previously served as worldwide chairman for the Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices group. Over the course of his 32-year career at J&J, Pruden held numerous senior leadership positions across both the medical device and pharmaceutical sectors

Prime Therapeutics – Joseph Leach was named CMO of Prime Therapeutics. He has held numerous leadership roles including medical director of Virginia Piper Cancer Institute in Minneapolis, past president of the Minnesota Society of Clinical Oncology and principal investigator for the Metro-Minnesota Community Oncology Research Consortium.

Cynosure – David Long was named CFO of Cynosure. Most recently, Long served as CFO at Corindus Vascular Robotics, Inc. Prior to that, Long spent nearly a decade at Thermo Fisher Scientific, where he held the position of Vice President of Finance of the Laboratory Equipment Division.

Aravive – Fred Eshelman has been unanimously appointed to the board of directors and named chairman of the board. Jay Shepard, Srinivas Akkaraju and Robert Hoffman have resigned from the board of directors. Rekha Hemrajani has resigned as the company’s CEO and as a director. Gail McIntyre, the company’s chief scientific officer, has been named CEO and appointed to the board of directors. Eshelman is the founder of Eshelman Venture, an investment company focused primarily on healthcare. Most recently, Eshelman served as chairman of the board of The Medicines Company. Eshelman currently serves on the boards of directors of Eyenovia, Inc., G1 Therapeutics, Inc. and Amplitude Healthcare Acquisition Corporation. McIntyre has served in various senior management and leadership positions throughout her career and has been with Aravive since 2016.

Cybrexa Therapeutics – Arthur DeCillis joined the company as acting CMO and will be responsible for the development of the first-in-human study of Cybrexa’s lead program, CBX-12. DeCillis previously served as CMO for Sesen Bio Inc. and before that, was vice president of clinical research at Exelixis.

Bolt Biotherapeutics – Edith Perez was named CMO of Bolt Therapeutics. Perez has held positions within AACR, ASCO and the NCI. Perez will maintain a clinical affiliation as Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic and director of the Mayo Clinic Breast Cancer Translational Genomics Program, where she has practiced for two decades. Prior to joining Bolt, Perez was the vice president and head of the BioOncology-U.S. medical affairs unit at Genentech for three years.