People on the Move: Biotechnology/Biopharmaceutical Companies

 

Asceneuron has appointed Peter Van Vlasselaer as chair of the board of directors. Van Vlasselaer was most recently the founder, president, and CEO of ARMO Biosciences Inc. Thomas C. Wessel, M.D., Ph.D., is now chief medical officer. He was chief medical officer at Flex Pharma Inc.

Onconova Therapeutics Inc. appointed Steven Fruchtman, M.D., as chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors. Dr. Fruchtman served as president of Onconova since June 2018, and initially joined the company during January 2015 as chief medical officer. Onconova is a Phase 3-stage biopharmaceutical company concentrating on discovering and developing novel products for the treatment of cancer, with a primary focus on myelodysplastic syndromes.

Angion Biomedica Corp. appointed Jay R. Venkatesan, M.D., as president and chief executive officer. In addition, John F. Neylan, M.D., was named senior vice president and chief medical officer. Angion is a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company focused on kidney diseases and other acute organ injuries.

Allena Pharmaceuticals Inc. promoted President and Chief Operating Officer Louis Brenner, M.D., to CEO and the board of directors effective Feb. 1, 2019. Dr. Brenner succeeds Alexey Margolin, Ph.D., as chief executive officer. Dr. Margolin, who co-founded Allena during 2011, transitioned to chairman of the board effective Feb. 1. Dr. Margolin continues to advise the company in this new role. Allena is a late-stage biopharma company dedicated to developing and commercializing first-in-class, oral enzyme therapeutics to treat patients with rare and severe metabolic and kidney disorders

Eric Dube, Ph.D., was named president and CEO of Retrophin Inc. effective Jan. 4, 2019. Dr. Dube joins Retrophin from ViiV Healthcare, where he served as president of North America, and brings a successful track record of worldwide leadership with significant expertise in delivering innovative therapies to address unmet patient needs. He additionally is serving as a member of Retrophin’s board of directors. Retrophin is a biopharma company specializing in identifying, developing and delivering life-changing therapies to people living with rare disease.

Scott Clarke has joined Tizona Therapeutics Inc. as CEO. Clarke comes to Tizona from Roche, where he served as the global head of Oncology Partnering and head of Asia and Emerging Markets Partnering. Tizona is a privately held immunotherapy company focused on harnessing the power of the immune system to develop cancer treatments.

Atara Biotherapeutics Inc. announced that Isaac Ciechanover, M.D., plans to step down as president and CEO. The board of directors has initiated a search for Dr. Ciechanover’s successor. He will remain in his role as president and CEO until the earlier of the appointment of his successor or June 30, 2019. Atara Biotherapeutics is a leading off-the-shelf, allogeneic T-cell immunotherapy company developing novel treatments for patients with cancer, autoimmune and viral diseases.

Michael S. Anderson resigned as CEO and as a member the board of directors of Avadel Pharmaceuticals plc. As a result, Chief Operating Officer Gregory J. Divis was named interim CEO while the board of directors initiated a search for a permanent chief executive officer. In conjunction with the management change, Geoffrey M. Glass, president of Clear Sciences LLC and a member of Avadel’s board of directors, was appointed chairman. The Honorable Craig Stapleton stepped down as chairman, but remains on the company’s board. Avadel is focused on providing innovative medicines for chronic urological, central nervous system, and sleep disorders.

James Callaway, Ph.D., is now CEO of KalGene Pharmaceuticals Inc. He was the CEO of ArmaGen Inc.

Tony Kingsley has joined TARIS Bio as president and CEO, and he was elected to the company’s board of directors. He was president and chief operating officer at The Medicines Company.

Paul Sekhri is now president and CEO of eGenesis. He succeeds Julie Sunderland, who had served as interim CEO of eGenesis since December 2017. Sekhri most recently came from Lycera Corp., where he served as president and CEO.

Ziopharm Oncology Inc. announced that David Mauney, M.D., was promoted to president. Dr. Mauney, who joined Ziopharm during 2017 as executive vice president and chief business officer, continues to report to Laurence Cooper, M.D., Ph.D., who serves as CEO and director of Ziopharm. The immuno-oncology company is focused on developing end-to-end cost-effective solutions using Ziopharm’s non-viral Sleeping Beauty platform for TCR and CAR T-cell therapies and immune-stimulating gene therapy with Controlled IL-12.

Jeffrey S. Hackman was appointed president of EUSA Pharma’s U.S. operations. He was acting CEO at Novelion Therapeutics.

Biophytis announced the promotion of Jean-Christophe Montigny to the role of chief operating officer and the appointment of Daniel Schneiderman as chief financial officer based in the company’s U.S. office located in Cambridge, Mass. Biophytis is a biotechnology company developing drug candidates to reduce disabilities caused by age-related and genetic degenerative diseases.

Lyn Baranowski has become chief operating officer of Altavant Sciences Inc. Baranowski was senior VP of Corporate Development and Strategy at Melinta Therapeutics. Altavant Sciences is working to advance promising therapies in areas of high unmet medical need with an initial focus on pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Jane Wright-Mitchell has become general counsel and Elaine Sun has been promoted to chief strategy officer and chief financial officer of SutroVax. Wright-Mitchell was chief legal officer, corporate secretary, and chief compliance officer at AcelRx Pharmaceuticals Inc. Sun has served as Chief Financial Officer for SutroVax since January 2017 and her expanded role will include responsibility for SutroVax’s financial, corporate development, and strategy functions.

ImmusanT Inc. appointed Thomas A. Shea as the company’s chief financial officer. Mr. Shea brings more than 30 years of professional financial experience in the biopharma industry to ImmusanT, where he will leverage his expertise to assist the company in fundraising and partnering activities. ImmusanT is leveraging the clinical-stage company’s Epitope-Specific Immuno-Therapy (ESIT) platform to deliver first-in-class peptide-based immunomodulatory vaccine therapies to patients with autoimmune diseases.

George O. Elston is now chief financial officer and head of corporate development for Enzyvant. He was president and CEO of 2X Oncology Inc.

Anthony H. Kim was appointed chief financial officer of Marker Therapeutics Inc. Michael J. Loiacono, who served as the company’s chief financial officer and chief accounting officer, continues in his role as Marker Therapeutics’ chief accounting officer. Kim was an executive director in the Healthcare Group at Nomura Securities International Inc.

Sri Ryali was appointed chief financial officer of Eiger BioPharmaceuticals Inc., which develops rare disease therapies. Ryali was most recently VP of finance at Aimmune Therapeutics Inc.

SQZ Biotechnologies tapped Oliver Rosen, M.D., as chief medical officer. Dr. Rosen is overseeing the clinical development of SQZ’s cell therapy pipeline and comes aboard as the company prepares to enter the clinic with a lead oncology candidate. SQZ is a cell therapy company developing novel treatments for multiple therapeutic areas.

Judith Ng Cashin, M.D., has joined AOBiome Therapeutics Inc. as chief medical officer. She was chief scientific officer at Syneos Health.

Sailaja Puttagunta, M.D., was appointed chief medical officer of BiomX Ltd. Dr. Puttagunta was VP of development at Iterum Therapeutics.

ProQR Therapeutics N.V. announced changes to the company’s management team along with key hires. Aniz Girach, M.D., has joined ProQR as chief medical officer. Tiffany Burt has come aboard the company to serve as VP, Head of Commercial. Lisa Hayes has taken on the position of VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Smital Shah was promoted to chief business and financial officer. René Beukema retired at the end of 2018 as chief corporate development officer & general counsel and management board member. Also retiring at the end of 2018 was Robert Cornelisse, Chief People and Organization. ProQR is dedicated to changing lives via the creation of transformative RNA medicines for treating severe genetic rare diseases.

Archie Tse, M.D., Ph.D., is now senior VP, chief translational medicine officer, of CStone Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Tse was executive director of Global Oncology Early Development at Merck (known as MSD outside the United States and Canada).

Cynthia Pussinen has been appointed executive VP, Technical Operations and Supply Chain, at Actinium Pharmaceuticals Inc. Pussinen joins Actinium from Pfizer, where she was the head of Strategic Portfolio Management, Worldwide Research & Development. Actinium Pharmaceuticals is focused on improving patient access and outcomes to cellular therapies such as bone marrow transplant (BMT) and CAR-T with the company’s proprietary, chemotherapy-free, targeted conditioning technology.

Suneel Gupta, Ph.D., has become executive VP of Clinical Operations and Clinical Pharmacology at Protagonist Therapeutics Inc. Dr. Gupta had held the position of chief scientific officer at Impax Pharmaceuticals.

Carrolee Barlow, M.D., Ph.D., is now chief medical officer of E-Scape Bio. Dr. Barlow most recently served as CEO of the Parkinson’s Institute and Clinical Center.

Charlie Shiner has been appointed VP, Marketing, at Rockwell Medical. He joins Rockwell from Otsuka Pharmaceuticals Ltd., where he was the marketing franchise leader for Otsuka’s renal portfolio. Rockwell Medical is a biopharmaceutical company targeting end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD).

DalCor named Peter Schuepbach VP of technical operations. Schuepbach is leading product development and supply chain management of dalcetrapib, which is undergoing testing in the dal-GenE Phase III clinical trial. DalCor is developing precision medicine by genetically targeting patients who will derive clinical benefits.