Biopharma and life sciences companies strengthen their leadership teams and boards with these Movers & Shakers.
Building a successful life sciences organization calls for effective leadership. This week, biopharma and life sciences companies strengthen their leadership teams with these Movers & Shakers.
Epygenix Therapeutics: Lorianne Masouka was named chief medical officer of Epygenix. Masuoka is a board-certified neurologist who previously served as CMO at Marinus Pharma, where she was CMO of In Vivo Therapeutics, Cubist Pharmaceuticals and Nektar Therapeutics. Previously, she also held various roles of increasing responsibility at Five Prime Therapeutics, Chiron Corporation and Berlex Laboratories. Aside from her executive roles, Masuoka also serves as a director on the board of Opiant Pharmaceuticals.
Enlivex Therapeutics: Israel’s Enlivex tapped Roger J. Pomerantz as vice chairman of its board of directors. Pomerantz served as worldwide head of Licensing and Acquisition and Knowledge Management at Merck & Co. and as global head of Infectious Diseases for Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals. Following his tenure with large pharma, Pomerantz joined Flagship Pioneering, where he was appointed president, chairman and chief executive officer of Seres Therapeutics. He is currently the president, CEO, and chairman of ContraFect Corporation and serves as a board member at several other biotech companies, including Viracta Therapeutics, Inc., Indaptus Therapeutics Inc., Collplant Biotechnologies Ltd., and X-Vax Inc.
Ascendis Pharma A/S: Jesper Høiland, global chief commercial officer of Acendis has retired. Høiland joined Ascendis as Senior Vice President and Global Chief Commercial Officer in May 2020. Alongside Høiland’s retirement Joe Kelly was appointed to the newly created role of head of U.S. Commercial, Endocrinology and Scott A. Holmes was appointed to the newly created position of head of Global Commercial Strategy, Endocrinology.
Praxis Precision Medicines: Jill DeSimone was appointed to the board of directors. DeSimone served as president of U.S. Oncology at Merck & Co. from 2014 to May 2022. Before Merck, she served as senior vice president of Global Women’s Health at Teva Pharmaceutical and served in several roles of increasing responsibility at Bristol Myers Squibb from 1980 to 2012, including senior vice president of U.S. Commercial and senior vice president of U.S. Virology/HIV. DeSimone serves as a board member for the Florida Cancer Specialists Foundation.
22nd Century Group: John J. Miller joined the 22nd Century tobacco business. He will direct the growth of the company’s reduced nicotine tobacco business. Most recently, Miller was the president and CEO of cigar company Swisher International, Inc.
Mind Medicine: Schond L. Greenway was named chief financial officer of Mind Medicine. Greenway joins MindMed after serving as CFO of Avalo Therapeutics. He previously served as vice president of Investor Relations at Mesoblast, and served in a similar role at Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc.
Salubris Biotherapeutics: Arian Pano was named CMO. Pano comes to SalubrisBio from Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, where he served as SVP of Clinical Development. Previously he served as SVP of Clinical Development for Galapagos NV, and concurrently served as the U.S. country head and Global Head of Safety.
SHINE Technologies: Chris Vessell was named general manager of the therapeutics division of SHINE. He most recently served as the U.S. Nuclear Medicine supply chain leader for GE Healthcare’s Pharmaceutical Diagnostics group.
CN Bio: Paul Brooks was named chief business officer of CN Bio. He joins from Horizon Discovery, a PerkinElmer Company, where he led its business units’ strategic and operational transformation as Head of Business Operations & Managing Director. Previously, Brooks had various management roles at Sigma-Aldrich and Oxford Genetics.
Chroma Medicine: John Maraganore, former CEO of Alnylam, was named a strategic adviser for Chromas Medicine and Celgene veteran George Golumbeski and current partner at DROIA Ventures was named an independent director.
Rubius Therapeutics: Noubar Afeyan, cofounder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, was named chairman of the board at Rubius. He replaces David Epstein as chairman. Afeyan is also co-founder and chairman of Moderna, and sits on several company boards, including Moderna, Omega Therapeutics, Generate Biomedicines, Rubius Therapeutics and Tessera Therapeutics.
Odyssey Therapeutics: Darryl Patrick was named vice president of non-clinical development. Patrick joins Odyssey from LionsKeep Associates LLC, where he served as a partner and acted as a non-clinical development consultant. Previously, Patrick held leadership roles at Vertex as VP of Non-Clinical Development and Exploratory Development. Prior to Vertex, Patrick spent nearly 20 years at Merck Research Laboratories in various positions of increasing responsibility.
Komodo Health: Aswin Chandrakantan was named the company’s first chief commercial officer. He will also retain his responsibilities as CMO. Prior to Komodo Health, Chandrakantan was a senior leader in Google’s Global Product Operations and Strategy. He also brings in-depth healthcare and analytics experience from his role at McKinsey, where he was a member of the healthcare analytics service line supporting leading biopharma companies, payer reform and revenue cycle management at top IDNs.
MDisrupt: Greg Nagy was named COO of digital health intelligence company MDistrupt. He previously served as chief marketing officer at Drawbridge Health and VP of Global Marketing at Topcon Eyecare. He has also held leadership positions at biotechnology and medical device companies, including Solta Medical, Amgen, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and Aurora Biosciences.
Nanoscope Therapeutics: Naveed Shams and Thomas Ciulla will serve as advisers to the company’s leadership team. Shams was most recently the chief science officer at ProQR Therapeutics and previously served as president and CEO of Santen Inc. and Global Head of R&D at Santen Pharmaceuticals. Ciulla served as CMO and chief development officer at Clearside Biomedical. At Spark Therapeutics, he led medical strategy through the approval and commercialization of Luxturna. Prior to Spark, he served as VP-Clinical Strategy at Ophthotech.
Senti Biosciences: Kanya Ragangam was named chief medical and development officer. Rajangam will join the company in July. Rajangam joins Senti Bio from Nkarta Therapeutics, where she was CMO. Prior to Nkarta, she was chief medical officer at Atara Biotherapeutics. Before that, Rajangam was CMO of Cleave Biosciences, and before that, held roles of increasing responsibility at Onyx and Exelixis.
Capricor Therapeutics: Xavier Avat was named CBO and will oversee the company’s strategic priorities. Prior to joining Capricor, Avat served as SVP of Global Corporate Strategy and New Initiatives at Edwards Lifesciences. Before that, Avat served as VP of Corporate Development at Santen Pharmaceuticals. Before that, Avat was with Gilead Sciences, where he held positions of increasing responsibility.
Russo Partners: Life sciences PR firm Russo Partners tapped Maxim Jacobs as SVP of investor relations. Most recently, he served as vice president of investor relations at Avalo Therapeutics. Previously, he was managing partner and director of research for North America for Edison Group.
Catalio Capital: Former OrbiMed Advisors Partner Chau Khuong has joined the firm as General Partner and Senior Advisor. Khuong, who had previously spent two decades at OrbiMed Advisors as a member of the Investment Committee for OrbiMed’s VC funds, will serve on the Investment Committees of Catalio’s flagship private equity strategy, Nexus, and its credit opportunities strategy.
Alchemab Therapeutics: Young T. Kwon, CFO and COO of Alchemab, has succeeded Douglas A. Treco as CEO. Treco resigned from the company for personal reasons. Kwon previously served as chief financial and business officer of Momenta Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Momenta, Kwon was a business development professional at Biogen and worked at the venture capital firm Advanced Technology Ventures.
Advent Life Sciences: Dominic Schmidt and Satish Jindal have been appointed general partners, and Katrine Bosley was named a venture partner. Schmidt previously spent eight years as a partner in the investment team of Syncona. Jindal served as CEO of BioMotiv, an early-stage investment fund and was a co-founder and CEO of NeoGenesis, co-founder and president of Verastem and co-founder of Elicio Therapeutics. Bosley is chair of Arrakis Therapeutics, founding CEO of DaCapo Brainscience, and a board member of the winding down Genocea Biosciences. She was CEO of Editas Medicine, and before that, she was CEO of Avila Therapeutics.
Bigfoot Biomedical: Matt Rainville was named chief commercial officer. He previously served as Insulet Corporation’s vice president and general manager of global Type 2 markets. Before Insulet, Rainville spent 13 years with Eli Lilly, where he held integral leadership roles in sales, training and development, marketing, operations, and market access.
