Biopharma and life sciences companies from across the globe strengthen their leadership teams and boards with these Movers & Shakers.
Life sciences companies from across the globe have bolstered their C-suite teams and boards with this week’s Movers & Shakers.
Bio-Me: Heiner Dreisman and Charles Stabell were appointed as senior advisers to Norway-based Bio-Me. Dreisman spent more than 25 years in Roche’s diagnostics division and was the former president and chief executive officer of Roche Molecular Systems. Stabell is a co-founder and CEO of GeoKnowledge.
Blue Spark Technologies: Becton Dickinson & Co. veteran John DeFord was appointed to the board of directors of Blue Spark. At BD, DeFord held numerous positions, including chief technology officer. Prior to BD, he spent time as head of technology and clinical affairs at C.R. Bard and president and CEO of Cook Incorporated. Currently, DeFord serves as chairman and CEO of Samothrace Medical Innovations Inc.
Roivant Sciences: Srini Ramanathan was named chief development officer of Roivant. He joined the company from Horizon Therapeutics, where he served as senior vice president of research and development sciences and site head of the South San Francisco office. Earlier in his career, he served in leadership roles at AbbVie and Gilead Sciences.
Hookipa Pharma: Christine D. Baker was promoted to chief operating officer. She first joined the company in 2019 as chief business officer. Prior to Hookipa, Baker served as CBO at EpicentRx and vice president at Novartis Oncology. She began her career at Schering-Plough, where she advanced through various roles in R&D, Marketing and Sales, Business Development, and General Management.
Codiak Biosciences: David Mauro was named chief medical officer. Most recently, he served as CMO of Prelude Therapeutics. Prior positions include chief medical officer roles at two oncology immunotherapy companies: Advaxis Immunotherapies and Checkmate Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career, Dr. Mauro held positions of increasing responsibility within the clinical and medical affairs teams at Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and Becton Dickinson.
Apellis Pharmaceuticals: Peter Hillmen, a renowned hematologist, has joined the company as head of hematology engagement. Hillmen will join Apellis from Leeds Institute of Medical Research in the United Kingdom, where he is a professor of experimental hematology. Hillmen currently chairs the PNH Global Registry Executive Committee and the International PNH Interest Group and established the Leeds National Commissioning Group Designated Centre for PNH.
GlycoEra AG: Ganesh V. Kaundinya was named president and CEO of Switzerland-based GlycoEra. Kaundinya has been a member of the GlycoEra AG Board of Directors since the company’s inception in 2020. Previously, he was the founder, COO and chief scientific officer of Momenta Pharmaceuticals. Prior to founding Momenta, Kaundinya was director of Bioinformatics Consortium for Glycomics, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kymera Therapeutics: Kymera appointed Todd Cooper to lead communications and corporate affairs. Cooper joins Kymera from Sanofi, where he led internal and external communications that enhanced the global pharmaceutical company’s scientific reputation, highlighted the company’s pipeline across all media types and engaged the R&D organization globally.
Ilya Pharma: Sweden’s Ilya Pharma named corporate development specialist Melya Hughes Crameri and Galderma veteran William Carson to its board of directors. Crameri was responsible for all licensing and patents at Novartis Research Foundation (FMI) globally for five years and as an early executive team member of Evolva SA. Carson has held senior leadership roles at Novartis, Bayer and Galderma in manufacturing, product development and regulatory affairs.
Anji Pharma: Julianne Averill was named chief financial officer, and Kristen Richardson was named chief people and performance officer at Anji. Averill joins Anji through Danforth Advisors, where she serves as a senior director providing operational and strategic CFO advisory services to biotech and health tech clients. Before Danforth Advisors, she served in multiple executive leadership positions at companies, including Alveo Technologies, BlackThorn Therapeutics and Manifest MedEx. Richardson most recently served on Kaleido’s executive team building organizational capabilities and shaping the culture in an evolving competitive landscape. Prior to joining Kaleido, she held HR roles in other life sciences and biotech companies, including MicroMedicine and Genzyme.
Adaptimmune Therapeutics: Joanna Brewer was named chief scientific officer. Most recently, Brewer served as SVP of allogeneic research at Adaptimmune since December 2019. Prior to her SVP role, Brewer held a series of senior managerial roles within Adaptimmune’s research organization. Brewer was one of the founding scientists at Adaptimmune. Prior to joining Adaptimmune in 2009, she held positions at Avidex, Medigene, and Immunocore.
Abata Therapeutics: Sandy Lazzari was named chief people officer. Prior to joining Abata, Lazzari was the vice president of People and Culture at PlateletBio. Before joining PlateletBio, she led the human resources organizations at several other life science companies, including Emulate Bio, Kala Pharmaceuticals, OvaScience, and Quanterix. Lazzari started her work in the life sciences at Millipore, where she spent eight years in global HR roles.
Achilles Therapeutics: Bernhard Ehmer was appointed to the board of directors as a non-executive director. Ehmer most recently served as CEO of Biotest AG in Germany and served as chairman of the board of directors at Symphogen A/S in Denmark. Before this, he worked for ImClone Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly. There, Ehmer served as president of ImClone Systems Inc. He also served as CEO of Fresenius Biotech.
RAPT Therapeutics: Gwen Carscaddem was named chief human resources officer, Jim Farmer was tapped as vice president of clinical operations and Shari Geffon was named vice president of program and alliance management. The appointments are expected to strengthen the company as it moves forward in its effort to develop oral small molecule therapies for patients with significant unmet needs in inflammatory diseases and oncology.
Coriolis Pharma: Germany-based Coriolis tapped Silvia Steyrer-Gruber as CEO. In her previous role as managing director of Europe at Exeltis, she was responsible for the European branded pharmaceutical business of the family-owned Spanish Multinational Healthcare Group. Before that, she served at Baxter, Kwizda Pharma and Serono in senior roles and gained more than 25 years of experience in biotech, vaccine and pharmaceutical companies.
VIDA Diagnostics: Jon Freeman was named CFO of VIDA Diagnostics. Additionally, Keshav Datta was named vice president of research and development and Martin Henehan was named vice president of business development.
Kbio: Sean Stevens was named chief scientific officer of London’s Kbio. Prior to KBio, Stevens served as vice president of exponential biotherapeutic engineering at the Lung Biotechnology subsidiary of United Therapeutics. Previously, he served as VP of mammalian synthetic biology at Synthetic Genomic Inc. Stevens also served as VP of research at Ablexis. Earlier in his career, he held various research positions of increasing responsibility at AnaptysBio, Inc. and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
J&J Vision: Johnson & Johnson Vision, a division of the life sciences giant, tapped Peter Menziuso as company group chairman. In his most recent role as worldwide president of J&J Vision Care, Menziuso accelerated growth, created and raised standards of care worldwide, and shaped a portfolio of solutions. Prior to joining J&J Vision, he served as president, North America, cardiovascular & metabolism, Janssen. His earlier roles within J&J include vice president, worldwide marketing; vice president, U.S. sales and market development; and general manager, Canada for LifeScan.
