Astellas president jumps to a new Frontier; Grifols chairman named CEO, breaking family tradition

Andrew Krivoshik

→ Andrew Krivoshik has jumped ship at Astellas to become CMO at Frontier Medicines, a substantial get for Chris Varma and his protein degradation crew. Krivoshik joined Astellas from Abbott in 2011 and was the oncology therapeutic area head at the Japanese pharma when the Seagen-partnered antibody-drug conjugate Padcev notched a full FDA approval in 2021.

Since then, Krivoshik ascended to SVP and head of development therapeutic areas, and then president and head of development in April 2022. AbbVie paid $55 million upfront in a December 2020 protein degradation pact with Frontier, which wants to challenge Amgen and Mirati in the KRAS space.

Thomas Glanzmann

→ A member of the Grifols family will no longer lead the blood plasma company that bears its name.

In a noticeably compact press release, chairman Thomas Glanzmann takes command as CEO, and former co-chiefs Victor Grifols Deu and Raimon Grifols Roura are sliding down to COO and chief corporate officer, respectively.

Grifols revealed first-quarter growth on Tuesday that exceeded expectations, but it hasn’t been equally rosy for the Barcelona company the past several years. The Covid-19 pandemic decimated the plasma business, causing Grifols’ net income to plummet by nearly 70% from $707 million in 2020 to $223 million in 2021. A couple weeks after Grifols laid off more than 2,000 US employees in plasma ops in February, Glanzmann stepped in as chairman when Steven Mayer resigned after only four months “for health and other personal reasons.” Raimon Grifols replaced Glanzmann as vice chairman and will continue in that capacity.

Pablo Cagnoni

→ Pablo Cagnoni has hit the reset button, eschewing another CEO post and venturing off to Incyte as president and head of R&D on June 5. Cagnoni’s affiliation with Flagship Pioneering companies began in 2018 when he was named CEO of Rubius Therapeutics after co-founding and leading Tizona Therapeutics. Rubius’ attempt to turn red blood cells into rare disease and cancer therapies ultimately didn’t work, and the biotech has since turned off the lights. Cagnoni then shifted gears at another Flagship biotech, replacing Diego Miralles as CEO of Laronde in November 2022. At Incyte, he will oversee a wide range of programs. The company decided to pull the plug on several programs as discussed last week in its Q1 report, notably PI3K candidate parsaclisib in warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia.

Trevor Hallam

Cagnoni’s departure from Laronde and the Flagship family means that chairman John Mendlein is back in the CEO slot on an interim basis. And Laronde isn’t finished retooling the C-suite, welcoming Trevor Hallam as CSO on May 15 while co-founder, board member, Flagship general partner and interim chief scientist Avak Kahvejian will lend a hand to Mendlein as an advisor. Hallam’s early résumé is stacked with Big Pharmas (GSK, Roche, AstraZeneca) and he had held the same CSO title at Sutro Biopharma since December 2010, adding the role of president, research in 2021.

Christian Hofmann

→ Launched last summer with a $65 million Series A and founded by Cal-Berkeley’s Daniel Nomura, protein stabilization biotech Vicinitas Therapeutics has recruited Christian Hofmann as CEO. In his tenure as CBO of Lycia Therapeutics, Hofmann helped engineer a protein degradation deal with Eli Lilly worth $35 million upfront and up to $1.6 billion in milestones. He also has a Big Pharma background as Roche’s director of global business development for the neuroscience, ophthalmology and rare disease therapeutic areas. Vicinitas is competing in the same space as companies like Stablix, which recently partnered with Vertex on small molecules that Stablix calls RESTORACs.

Matthias Schroff

→ There isn’t much left to Exicure after the departures of CEO Matthias Schroff, CFO Elias Papadimas and two-thirds of the workforce. But Schroff’s next opportunity to lead a company is already in place at Inceptor Bio, which raised a $37 million Series A round last year for its assortment of CARs (T, M and NK). Founding CEO Shailesh Maingi will hand the stage to Schroff — the former chief executive of Vaximm and Mologen — but is still very much a part of Inceptor Bio as executive chairman.

Susan Altschuller

→ With its CEO transition a month away, Cerevel will bring in Susan Altschuller as CFO on May 15. Altschuller walked away as finance chief of ImmunoGen a month after the accelerated approval of its ovarian cancer drug Elahere. (ImmunoGen’s confirmatory results, announced last week, bring the biotech one step closer to a full FDA nod.) Earlier, Altschuller held the roles of VP, investor relations and head of enterprise finance at Alexion, and she also worked in investor relations at Biogen and Bioverativ. Ex-Translate Bio chief Ron Renaud is slated to replace Tony Coles as Cerevel CEO on June 12.

George Scangos

→ Voyager CEO Al Sandrock has enlisted the help of George Scangos on the board of directors. Sandrock and Scangos obviously know each other well from their days at Biogen — Scangos was CEO of the big biotech from 2010-17, while Sandrock led development. Sandwiched in between, Scangos had CEO stints at Exelixis and Vir Biotechnology, where he just retired last month and passed the torch to ex-Bayer business guru Marianne De Backer.

Samantha Budd Haeberlein

→ Samantha Budd Haeberlein, the Biogen exec at the center of a particularly chummy relationship with the FDA under then-neuro chief Billy Dunn during the aducanumab saga, has joined the board of directors at Vigil Neuroscience. Budd Haeberlein left her position as Biogen’s SVP and head of neurodegeneration development in March.

Linda Bain

→ Following the demise of Codiak BioSciences, staffers are scattering to greener pastures, and this week it’s Linda Bain’s turn as she becomes COO and CFO of little-known radiopharma biotech Mariana Oncology. Bain took the CFO job at Codiak in 2015, steering the company through multiple financing rounds and an $83 million IPO on its second try in 2020. Her CV also includes finance roles at Genzyme and bluebird bio. Codiak filed for bankruptcy in late March, and top boss Doug Williams quickly turned the page by landing at Sana Biotechnology as R&D chief two weeks later.

Harish Shantharam

→ Looking to salvage seladelpar in primary biliary cholangitis after a litany of NASH failures, CymaBay has tapped Gilead vet Harish Shantharam as CFO. Shantharam had worked at Roger Perlmutter’s Eikon Therapeutics as a senior finance advisor to CFO Freddie Bowie after 11 years at Gilead, where he was promoted to head of global commercial finance in 2019. Shantharam also had a series of posts at Amgen from 2004-11.

→ Facing big-time competition in the migraine space — especially in the nasal spray formulation — from Pfizer and Biohaven’s Zavzpret, Trudhesa maker Impel Pharmaceuticals has selected Michael Kalb as CFO. Kalb has been a finance chief before with Amarin (2016-22) and then with CinCor Pharma, the hypertension biotech that AstraZeneca bought for $1.8 billion in January.

→ To say KBI Biopharma is on a hiring spree would be an understatement. In the span of a month, the company has picked up a new CEO in the likes of JD Mowery and a new SVP and site head in David Steward. The latest changes to the team is the addition of Marykay Marchigiani as CFO, while Sigma Mostafa has been promoted to CSO. Not her first time wearing the CFO hat, Marchigiani has served in the role at Advanced Bioscience Laboratories, Batelle National Biodefense Institute and Censeo Consulting Group.

Keith Harrison Dewedoff

Meanwhile, Mostafa formerly served as KBI’s SVP and site head, having been with the company for 13 years now.

→ Chad Hellmann is resigning from his role as CFO at Swiss-based NLS Pharmaceuticals and passing the baton to Keith Harrison Dewedoff in an interim capacity. Far from Dewedoff’s first rodeo as CFO, he’s served in the role at Danforth Advisors, Code Biotherapeutics, Ceptur Therapeutics and Kaizen Bioscience (where he currently serves as chairman of the board).

→ NeuroTrauma Sciences has snatched up Marc de Somer as CMO and Martin Rabe as EVP of regulatory affairs and quality assurance. De Somer formerly held stints at Sandoz/Novartis, Macona Pharmaceuticals, PPD and Alkermes. Meanwhile, Rabe previously served as SVP and head of global regulatory affairs and quality assurance at Kira Pharmaceuticals. Rabe has also spent more than a decade at Eisai and six years at Pfizer.

Monic Stuart

→ Houston-based T cell therapy developer Marker Therapeutics has named Monic Stuart to fill its CMO vacancy. Stuart has been doing plenty of consulting work since she left Geron in 2012 as VP of clinical development, and during her five years with Genentech, she was a senior medical director in the oncology division. Peer Review spoke with Stuart’s predecessor, Mythili Koneru, when she took the CMO job at Legend Biotech in April.

Reza Afkhami

→ Reza Afkhami has moved on to GSK partner 23andMe as chief corporate development officer after a year leading corporate development and strategy at Global Blood Therapeutics. Afkhami was involved in the M&A process when Pfizer bolstered its sickle cell portfolio and purchased GBT for $5.4 billion last summer. He’s also a Prothena alum who ended a three-and-a-half-year run as Surrozen’s VP, corporate development and strategy in January 2022.

→ UK biotech Immodulon has rolled out the welcome maat for Gertjan Bartlema as CEO and Peter Greaney as CBO. Bartlema most recently served as CEO of VICO Therapeutics and formerly head a 12-year stint with Celgene and a 9-year role with Amgen. Meanwhile, Greaney jumps aboard from ADC Therapeutics, where he served as head of corporate development. Prior to that, Greaney had a 13-year gig with Celgene.

Additionally, Immodulon has given Richard Davies a seat on its board as deputy chairman. Davies is the deputy chairman of the board for Alvotech. Earlier in his career, Davies was CEO of Bonesupport and Auregen, CCO of Hospira, and had a 9-year career with Amgen and a start with Eli Lilly.

Shelby Walker

→ RNA editing shop Korro Bio has picked up Shelby Walker as general counsel. Walker’s hiring as CRISPR Therapeutics’ head of intellectual property coincided with chief legal officer Tyler Dylan-Hyde’s retirement in 2018. Prior to her five years at CRISPR, the ex-IP attorney at Novo Nordisk was general counsel for Ginkgo Bioworks. Launched by Atlas while chairman Nessan Bermingham was a venture partner, Korro Bio raised $116 million in its latest round of financing.

→ China-US rare disease and cancer biotech CANbridge Pharmaceuticals is leaning into the gene therapy space with CRISPR Therapeutics vet Jason West as head of gene therapy research. The scientist, who held positions at Amgen and Biogen, comes from Fractyl Health, where he was senior gene therapy research group director. At CRISPR, West served as group leader in hematology and advanced editing research from 2016-19.

→ Raleigh, NC-based Bryn Pharma, which picked up Jim Borneman as COO back at the end of March, has made some additional hires to its leadership team. Coming aboard are Nurry Hong as chief strategy and business development officer, Steve Killmeyer as CFO and Lisa Lucifero as VP, head of human resources. Hong most recently served as CEO of Pareto Bio. At the same time, Killmeyer was head of finance and strategy at Aimmune and had earlier gigs at Nestle Health Science, Pfizer and J&J, among others. Last but not least, Lucifero has experience from DBV Technologies, Mallinckrodt, Catalent and Sanofi under her belt.

Additionally, Bryn has welcomed Michael Kaseta, CFO of Liquidia, to its board of directors.

Mark Alles

→ Ex-Celgene chairman and CEO Mark Alles has been named chair of the board at off-the-shelf CAR-T and NK biotech Wugen, replacing Natalie Mount, who remains a director. Alles has several other board seats to his credit, including BioMarin and Syros Pharmaceuticals.

Cynthia Collins

→ RNA-focused Nutcracker Therapeutics has reserved space for ex-Editas Medicine CEO Cynthia Collins on the board of directors. Collins is the lead director at Panavance Therapeutics, a cancer biotech under the direction of CEO Greg Bosch — with ex-Celgene clinical development leader José Iglesias as consulting medical chief. She also sits on the boards of Poseida, Certara and Triumvira Immunologics, among others.

Ned Sharpless

→ Ned Sharpless is cropping up at AI tech company Tempus, where he’ll be serving as a senior strategic advisor. The former acting FDA chief currently sits on the board of G1 Therapeutics, a position he took after cutting loose from a five-year gig as National Cancer Institute (NCI) director.

→ Zevra minority shareholder Daniel Mangless has prevailed, securing his three nominees to the board of directors. At the same time, Zevra’s CEO, Richard Pascoe, is out. Pascoe announced his resignation, effective June 1, while the board searches for an interim CEO immediately. In March, Mangless sent a letter to shareholders, writing that Zevra had a “lag­ging stock price” and a “lack of vi­sion.” Mangless’ picks, including John Bode, owner of Aerie Investments, Douglas Calder, president of the life science company Cycellix, and Corey Watton, the CFO of Fusion Medical Staffing, took the places of Pas­coe, Christo­pher Pos­ner and David Tier­ney on the board. Additionally, board chair Matthew Plooster and board member Joseph Saluri, are also planning to retire as soon as replacements are found.

→ Pennsylvania synthetic lethality player Aprea Therapeutics has elected Gabriela Gruia to the board of directors. Gruia ran the drug regulatory affairs team at Novartis Oncology and had a brief stay at Ichnos Sciences as chief development officer. She owns additional board seats at Tessa Therapeutics, TScan Therapeutics and Molecular Templates.

→ The former global president of Pfizer Vaccines, Nanette Cocero, is picking up a board seat at vaccine maker HilleVax. Cocero was responsible for the development, global commercialization and delivery of more than 2 billion doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine to 152 countries and territories worldwide.

→ China’s Hutchmed, which recently bagged $400 million in cash from Takeda for its colorectal cancer drug, has picked up Solange Peters for its board of directors. Peters is a professor and chair in the department of oncology at the University Hospital of Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland.

→ Takeda partner Engitix, the British biotech backed by billionaire hedge fund manager Mike Platt, has pulled out a seat on its board of directors for Sonia Quaratino. Quaratino currently serves as CMO of Georgiamune and sits on the board of Ichnos Sciences, among others. Quaratino previously served as CMO of Kymab and has earlier gigs at Novartis and Merck Sserono under her belt.

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