Biopharma companies strengthen their executive ranks and boards with new additions.
It’s been a big week for leadership changes in pharmaceutical companies.
The week began with GlaxoSmithKline announcing that Jack Bailey, president of its U.S. pharmaceuticals division, would step down from his role and be replaced by EMD Serono’s Maya Martinez-Davis, currently head of that company’s Latin American region. Martinez-Davis will join GSK in mid-September and will assume responsibility of the U.S. Pharmaceuticals business at GSK on Jan. 1, 2020. Another shakeup occurred at Novartis subsidiary AveXis. In the wake of the data manipulation scandal surrounding gene therapy Zolgensma, Novartis announced that AveXis’ scientific founders, Brian and Allan Kaspar, had been gone from the gene therapy company since May. Taking over for the Kaspars will be Page Bouchard, a longtime veteran of Novartis, who will assume responsibility for the roles of head of R&D and chief scientific officer.
In other Movers and Shakers news:
Cerevel Therapeutics – Boston-based Cerevel tapped Orly Mishan as chief business officer. In this newly created role, Mishan will lead corporate development, program management, and technical operations. Mishan joins Cerevel Therapeutics from Bain Capital Life Sciences where she served as principal, overseeing investments in biopharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics, and enabling technology companies. She was a founding member of the Bain Capital Life Sciences team and helped execute the partnership with Pfizer that led to the formation of Cerevel Therapeutics. Prior to Bain, Mishan was the vice president of corporate strategy at Biogen. She spent more than 10 years at Boston Scientific in leadership roles supporting strategy, transaction and restructuring activities, and spearheading the development of the global healthcare services business.
SpringWorks Therapeutics -- Francis (Frank) Perier, Jr. joined SpringWorks as chief financial officer. Prior to Springworks, Perier served as CFO of Forest Laboratories, Inc. for 10 years, prior to its acquisition by Actavis in 2014. Prior to Forest Labs, he held leadership roles in finance at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Before joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, he was an accounting and auditing partner at Deloitte. Perier was a member of the Board of Directors of Concordia International, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company, until September 2018 where he served on the Audit and the Human Resources and Compensation Committees of the company.
On Target Laboratories – Indiana-based On Target Laboratories named Christopher Barys as chief executive officer. Prior to joining On Target Laboratories, Barys led the Image Guided Therapy group at Philips Healthcare. Barys also served as the vice president and general manager of the Interventional Lung Solutions division of Early Technologies at Medtronic and general manager of Global Surgical Pain, at Kimberly-Clark Corporation.
Biolog-id LLC – Troy Hilsenroth was named CEO of Atlanta-based Biolog-id LLC, a leader in connected health solutions. Prior to Hilsenroth’s appointment, Biolog-id President Pierre Parent was overseeing the region. Parent will remain at the company in his current role as president. Hilsenroth will focus on driving the adoption of the company’s solutions and enhancing its R&D capabilities in the North American market. Before joining Biolog-id, Hilsenroth served as the vice president and general manager of the medication adherence division at Omnicell. Prior to Omnicell, Hilsenroth held management and staff pharmacy positions at prominent healthcare systems.
Curis, Inc. -- Reinhard von Roemeling was named head of clinical development and Christine Guertin was named head of regulatory affairs and quality assurance at Lexington, Mass.-based Curis, Inc. von Roemeling has extensive global experience designing and advancing early- and late-stage clinical trials for oncology candidates. He joins Curis from his role as Global Head of Research and Development at Huya Bioscience International. Previously, von Roemeling held various leadership roles in oncology research and clinical development at EMD-Serono, Daiichi Sankyo, Fresenius Group, Schering AG/Berlex, Boehringer Ingelheim, Sanofi and Sterling-Winthrop. Guertin joins Curis from her role as head of Regulatory Affairs at Synlogic, Inc. and director of Regulatory Affairs at Array BioPharma. Before that, Guertin held various regulatory affairs roles at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, DUSA Pharmaceuticals, Altus Pharmaceuticals and Genzyme Corporation.
Iora Health – Suzanne Hansen joined Boston-based Iora Health as chief operations officer. Hansen replaces Zander Packard who was promoted to president earlier this year. Hansen spent more than two decades at HealthCare Partners, the country’s largest operator of medical groups and physician networks with 9,000 providers and two million patients. As vice president of operations, Hansen led 19 medical offices and three affiliated physician networks serving more than 200,000 patients in Southern California, demonstrating improvements in quality and patient experience while reducing the costs of care.
Healthline Media – Steve Swasey joined Healthline Media as head of communications and Laurie Dewan joined as vice president of consumer insights. Both are new roles for the media company. In his new role, Swasey leads Healthline’s external and internal communications strategy and program implementation. Dewan is responsible for building a new Customer Insights and Analytics function at the company.
Ludi, Inc. -- Danielle O’Rourke was named COO of Ludi, Inc., health care technology and physician-advocacy firm. The COO position is new to the company. O’Rourke will focus on managing day-to-day business processes at Ludi and executing long-term strategic and financial initiatives for the company and its award-winning DocTime Log product suite. Prior to Ludi, O’Rourke founded ROND Capital, a Nashville-based private equity firm, where she served as CEO.
AmerisourceBergen Corporation – Pennsylvania-based AmerisourceBergen tapped Leslie E. Donato as chief strategy officer. Donato will focus on operationalizing and evolving a strategic framework for the organization while identifying and implementing a range of growth initiatives that will add further value for its customers. Most recently at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Donato developed an integrated global pharmaceutical strategy and a U.S. growth strategy, oversaw the U.S. business for both hematology and neurology, and led the global strategic marketing team for neurology. Prior to Bayer, Donato was a Partner at McKinsey & Company specializing in healthcare.
M2Gen – Health informatics solutions company M2Gen named Helge Bastian as president and CEO. Bastian succeeds M2Gen Executive Chair William S. Dalton, who has served as interim CEO since September 2018. As M2Gen’s new CEO, he will focus on expanding the company’s business portfolio and growing the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network (ORIEN), an alliance of biopharmaceutical companies and leading cancer centers. Bastian joins M2Gen from Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., where he led the Sample Preparation and Synthetic Biology businesses. Before Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bastian held a number of leadership positions at Indivumed, Sigma-Aldrich (now Merck KGaA), SGS and more.
Physicians Endoscopy – Pennsylvania-based Physicians Endoscopy (PE) named David Young as CEO. He joined the company last year as president. Barry Tanner, PE’s co-founder, has been named Chairman as part of his succession plan. Tanner’s primary focus will be strategic planning and business development. Before PE, Young was COO of Privia Health, Inc., a national physician practice management and medical group based in Virginia.
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