BioSpace Movers and Shakers: April 5

Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals started the week with a new chief financial officer. Charles (Charlie) Wagner will take over the top finance spot at the cystic fibrosis drugmaker on April 10.

In his new role, Wagner will oversee the finance, internal audit, investor relations and global security and facilities functions at Vertex. Wagner joins Vertex from Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Inc., where he served as CFO and executive vice president of finance. Prior to that, Wagner served as CFO for publicly- traded Bruker Corporation, Progress Software Corporation and Millipore Corporation. In addition to his corporate finance roles, Wagner served as an advisor at Bain & Company and Coopers & Lybrand.

Wagner will report to Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Leiden.

“I am excited to be joining Vertex at such a dynamic time as the company continues to deliver more transformational medicines for cystic fibrosis patients and accelerates its pipeline of innovative and novel life-changing treatments for patients with other serious diseases,” Wagner said in a statement. “I look forward to working with Vertex’s senior leadership team and employees to help the company continue to drive value through its remarkable innovation.”

InCarda Therapeutics – Bay Area-based InCarda named Daniel G. Welch as its chairman of the board of executives. Welch, who has more than 30 years’ worth of experience, was most recently chairman of Illinois-based AveXis, which was acquired by Novartis in 2018 for $8.7 billion. He also served as president, chief executive officer and chairman of InterMune when the company was sold to Roche for $8.3 billion in 2014. Welch has also had leadership roles in Triangle Pharmaceuticals, Ultragenyx Pharmaceuticals, Levo Therapeutics, Intercept Pharmaceuticals and Seattle Genetics.

Celyad – Filippo Petti was named CEO of Belgium-based Celyad, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of CAR-T therapies. He succeeds Christian Homsy in the top spot. Homsy will remain a director of the company and will support Petti in his new role. Most recently, Petti served as chief financial officer for Celyad and will remain in that role as interim CFO until a replacement is found. Prior to joining Celyad as CFO, Mr. Petti served as a healthcare investment banker at Wells Fargo Securities and William Blair & Company.

Lachman Consultants -- Mary Oates joined New York-based Lachman as head of compliance services. Oates began her career as a senior scientist for Glaxo Inc. in 1990 and then went to Warner Lambert in 1994 until that company was acquired by Pfizer. She then began to take on roles of increasing responsibility in quality and regulatory affairs. Over the next 18 years, she rose to become head of global quality operations at Pfizer and vice president of innovative operations and network excellence. Oates is a board member of the Parenteral Drug Association, and a past member of the ICH Q12 Expert Working Group.

Arvinas – Connecticut-based Arvinas appointed Andy Crew as chief technology officer and Ian Taylor as chief scientific officer. Crew, formerly the senior vice president of chemistry at Arvinas, joined at the inception of the company in 2013. He was instrumental in building and optimizing the Arvinas PROTAC technology platform and its deployment into therapeutic programs. As CTO, Crew will explore innovative new technologies and collaborations that hold the promise of further extending the application of the PROTAC platform. Taylor was formerly senior vice president of biology at Arvinas and has been with the company since 2016. In addition to continued leadership over the biology function, Taylor will play an integral role in advancing into new therapeutic areas and overseeing and building our future partnerships. As CSO, he will be responsible for driving forward the company’s preclinical portfolio.

Provention Bio – There were two appointments made at Oldwick, N.J.-based Provention. Douglas Jacobstein was named vice president of clinical development and Alex Rabiee was named vice president of business development. Jacobstein most recently served as director of clinical development in the immunology division of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, where he helped develop study designs and protocols for clinical programs. Previously, he was director of clinical affairs of autoimmunity, in the ImmunoDiagnostics Division of Thermo Fisher Scientific. Rabiee most recently served as director of business development at Amgen. He joined Amgen in 2004 and held positions of increasing responsibility including R&D program management and business development.

Enterome Bioscience – Roche veteran Jan Fagerberg was appointed chief medical officer and Catherine Mathis was named chief development officer at Paris-based Enterome. Prior to joining the company, Fagerberg served as senior adviser at Fagerberg Oncology SA. Fagerberg joined Roche in 1999, working both in Europe and the United States in various positions of increasing responsibility, ultimately serving as Therapeutic Area Expert Oncology at Hoffmann-La Roche in Switzerland. After Roche, Fagerberg served as the Medical Director at TopoTarget A/S and as the CMO at Micromet A/G. Mathis most recently served as chief operating officer and head of regulatory affairs at ElsaLys Biotech. She also served for nearly 20 years as head of regulatory affairs at Transgene, a French biotech company developing virus-based immunotherapies against cancers.

Mologic – Bedfordshire, U.K.-based Mologic expanded its footprint in the United States and made key appointments across its executive team. Key appointments include Steve Fletcher as president of Mologic Inc. and chief commercial officer. He will head the company’s U.S. headquarters in Boston. Mologic’s Executive team has been further strengthened with the appointments of Tim Dwyer as CTO and Joseph Fitchett as CMO & head of Global Health to support the expansion of its UK facilities.

Palladio Biosciences – Privately-held Palladio Biosciences named Sanford Zweifach as the company’s first chairman of the board of directors. Zweifach is the co-founder and CEO of Nuvelution Pharma, Inc. Previously, Zweifach helmed Ascendancy Healthcare, Inc. and of Pathways Diagnostics. He also served as a partner at Reedland Capital Partners and was CFO of Epoch Biosciences, which was acquired by Nanogen. He currently serves as the Chair of IMIDomics SL.

Amneal Pharmaceuticals -- Pradeep Bhadauria was named CSO of New Jersey-based Amneal Pharmaceuticals. He succeeds Shankar Hariharan, who is leaving Amneal on May 24. Bhadauria joins Amneal from Apotex, Inc., where he most recently served as executive vice president of Global R&D, responsible for leading the company’s entire global R&D activities. He also managed a large generic R&D portfolio across many dosage forms for various global markets. Prior to joining Apotex, he served as Vice president of generic R&D for Allergan/Actavis.

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