People on the Move: Specialty Pharma Companies
Paul M. Bisaro was made president and CEO and a member of the board of directors of Impax Laboratories Inc. He previously served as executive chairman of Allergan. Impax Laboratories is a specialty pharmaceutical company applying its formulation expertise and drug delivery technology to the development of controlled-release and specialty generics in addition to the development of central nervous system disorder branded products.
David Hung, M.D., was named CEO of Axovant Sciences. Dr. Hung, who also joined Axovant’s board of directors, succeeds founding CEO Vivek Ramaswamy. Dr. Hung founded Medivation in 2003 and served as president and CEO through its acquisition by Pfizer in 2016. Marion McCourt became president and chief operating officer of Axovant. McCourt served as chief operating officer of Medivation. Axovant Sciences is a leading clinical-stage neurology company focused on the treatment of dementia and related neurological disorders.
John Tucker is now president and CEO of scPharmaceuticals Inc. Prior to joining scPharmaceuticals, Tucker served as CEO of Alcresta. scPharmaceuticals is a privately held biopharmaceutical company developing an innovative platform (sc2WearTM Infusor) that may improve patient care and reduce costs to the healthcare system through subcutaneous delivery of IV-equivalent drugs.
Mark F. Kubik has joined i2 Pharmaceuticals Inc. in the role of chief business officer. He has led negotiation of transformative and award-winning technology and product partnerships for leading therapeutics companies including global co-development agreements on behalf of Abgenix (now Amgen) with Immunex for Vectibix (panitumab), on behalf of Seattle Genetics with Takeda for Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin), and on behalf of MacroGenics with Gilead. i2 Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company focused on next generation discovery and development of therapeutics with a focus on personalized cancer treatment.
H. Martin Seidel joins IFM Therapeutics as executive VP of research and development. Seidel joins IFM from Novartis, where he was most recently the global head of strategic alliances for the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR). IFM Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company developing a portfolio of first-in-class small molecules targeting the innate immune system for the treatment of cancer, inflammatory, and autoimmune disease.
David Price was appointed as chief financial officer of Concordia International Corp. Price succeeds Edward Borkowski, who departed the company to pursue other opportunities. Most recently, he served as chief financial officer of Bioventus Inc. Concordia is a diverse, international specialty pharmaceutical company focused on generic and legacy pharmaceutical products.
Joel Sendek is now chief financial officer of Spero Therapeutics LLC. Sendek was most recently the chief financial officer of Forward Pharma A/S. Additionally, Carol Waldo was appointed to the newly created position of head of regulatory affairs. Waldo was VP of regulatory affairs at Cubist Pharmaceuticals. Spero is a global multi-asset clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing a novel and highly differentiated pipeline of antibacterials focused on unmet needs of patients with drug resistant bacterial infections.
Ted Raad is now chief business officer of Pulmatrix Inc. He was chief commercial officer at Option Care. Pulmatrix is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative inhaled therapies to address serious pulmonary disease using its patented iSPERSE technology.
Brian Drazba was appointed chief financial officer at MEI Pharma Inc. Drazba served as VP of finance and chief financial officer of Heron Therapeutics Inc. MEI Pharma is a San Diego-based oncology company focused on the clinical development of novel therapies for cancer.
Judith Walker, M.D., F.R.C.P.(C), is now chief medical officer at Accera Inc. Dr. Walker joins Accera from QuintilesIMS where she held the position of VP of product development. Accera is a CNS therapeutics company.
Dr. Yisheng Lee has been appointed chief medical officer at Foresee Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. Dr. David Lau has taken the role of senior VP, NCE Preclinical and Clinical Development. Dr. Lee has practiced pediatric hematology/oncology and held multiple academic appointments (teaching and research) at Harvard, Duke, Stanford, and UCSF Medical Schools over the past 30 years. Dr. Lau recently was VP, preclinical safety assessment, at Rigel Pharmaceuticals. Foresee is a Taiwan and U.S.-based biopharmaceutical company focused on two key areas: its unique stabilized injectable formulation (SIF) depot delivery platform and derived drug products targeting specialty markets; and its transformative early stage preclinical and clinical NCE programs targeting inflammatory and fibrotic diseases and other disease areas with highly unmet needs.
