BioSpace Movers and Shakers: May 10

Immunocore -- Mohammed Dar was named head of clinical development and chief medical officer for Oxfordshire-based Immunocore Limited. Dar will be responsible for clinical, operational, biostatistics and medical affairs functions across all therapeutic areas, including the company’s lead program, tebentafusp. Before joining Immunocore, Dar was head of clinical development oncology, R&D at MedImmune (AstraZeneca) and spent 10 years at GSK in roles of increasing responsibility focused on early clinical development in oncology. In addition to Dar, Immunocore also tapped Bristol-Myers Squibb veteran Mark Moyer as its head of regulatory and Koustubh Ranade, head of translational medicine. Ranade was most recently vice president of translational medicine at MedImmune for all therapeutic areas.

Eisai – Alzheimer’s-focused company Eisai tapped two experts in neuroscience. Harald Hampel joins the company as vice president of global medical affairs. Michael Irizarry was named vice president of clinical research. Both executives will work on advancing the company’s extensive pipeline of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia compounds. Hampel is the founding director of the Alzheimer Memorial Center at the University of Munich. Irizarry spent 12 years as a researcher at the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. He has held leadership positions in the neuroscience area at Eli Lilly and in epidemiology at GlaxoSmithKline.

FogPharma – Boston-based FogPharma named Howard Stern as its chief scientific officer. Prior to joining FogPharma, Stern was vice president of translational sciences at Juno Therapeutics where he managed teams responsible for correlative studies and pharmacology of CAR-T cell candidates. He held a similar role at Infinity Pharmaceuticals. FogPharma also announced the appointment of Peter Fekkes as vice president of discovery bioscience. Prior to joining FogPharma, Fekkes held roles of increasing responsibility at Novartis and H3 Biomedicine. Most recently, he headed the New Target Platform at HotSpot Therapeutics, where he applied artificial intelligence approaches to the identification of targets with suitable pockets that are functionally involved in allosteric regulation.

Rettsyndrome.org – AMO Pharma CMO Joseph Horrigan joined the board of directors of Rettsynrdome.org. Horrigan is a pediatric neuropsychiatrist with over 30 years’ of experience working with children and adults with neurodevelopmental and pervasive developmental delays. He also has 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, including a role as head of clinical development at Neuren Pharmaceuticals.

Kyn Therapeutics -- Jeffrey Ecsedy was named CSO and Jason Sager was named CMO of Boston-based Kyn Therapeutics. Ecsedy was formerly a member of the Oncology R&D leadership team at Takeda Pharmaceuticals as head of oncology translational medicine. Prior to that, he spent a decade at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Sager is a highly distinguished clinical oncologist and previously served as a senior medical director in Sanofi’s oncology division, leading development of an early-stage clinical portfolio. Both executives joined Kyn in 2017, with Sager serving as the company’s interim chief medical officer.

Merida Capital Partners – Merida, a private equity firm focused on high-conviction investments in the cannabis ecosystem, added former Omnicom Group Inc. executive Tom Harrison and former Medco Health Solutions executive Pamela Galassini as senior operating partners. Harrison is a former board member of Zynerba Pharmaceuticals. Galassini served as the CEO of Leafline Labs, one of only two medical cannabis vertical operators licensed in the state of Minnesota.

Bicycle Therapeutics – England-based Bicycle Therapeutics tapped Lisa Mahnke as head of clinical and Terrence West as head of program management. Mahnke will lead Bicycle’s clinical efforts. Most recently, Mahnke was head of clinical development at Dragonfly Therapeutics and Syros Pharmaceuticals. Before that, she held positions of increasing responsibility in clinical pharmacology and clinical development, including medical lead and head of clinical pharmacology, at BMS, Merck, EMD Serono and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. West was most recently executive director of Project Management at EMD Serono, where he successfully led multiple teams from discovery through initial FDA filings. He has also worked in program management for companies including ZioPharm Oncology, Stryker Regenerative Medicine, Dynavax Technologies and Exelixis, Inc.

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