Glyscend taps CEO to lead oral obesity, type 2 diabetes candidate; Ex-Travecta chief bounces back after company shutdown

Sapan Shah

As a new wave of type 2 diabetes and obesity drugs takes the industry by storm, Glyscend Therapeutics has tapped a new CEO to lead the charge for its candidate designed to mimic metabolic surgery.

Sapan Shah is taking the driver’s seat at Glyscend as founding CEO Ashish Nimgaonkar shifts to other roles as chief medical officer and head of R&D, the company announced on Tuesday. The news comes just a few months after Glyscend unveiled topline data from a Phase IIa suggesting its lead candidate, GLY-200, helped type 2 diabetes patients achieve significant reductions in blood glucose and a decrease in body weight. The company hopes the oral drug will have the same effects as metabolic surgery without the cost and complications from the invasive procedure.

“New oral treatment modalities which are safe, well-tolerated, efficacious and accessible are needed, and this is what drives the entire Glyscend team on a daily basis,” Shah said in an email to Endpoints News. 

The full Phase IIa results will be presented in mid-October, while longer-term Phase IIb studies in obesity and type 2 diabetes should commence in 2024, Shah said.

Shah has held several chief executive roles, including at StrideBio, ARMGO Pharma, Ezose Sciences and Shionogi.

“I think one of the biggest lessons for me, not just from Stride but over the course of my career, has been to always try to work on big, difficult, but also truly meaningful problems for patients, and to make sure to do that with great people who share the same passion,” he said.  — Nicole DeFeudis

Charles Ryan

→ The folks that were once known as Cortexyme, Quince Therapeutics, have appointed Charles Ryan as president. We last saw Ryan in Peer Review in 2021 when he became president and CEO of Travecta Therapeutics, a biotech focusing on the blood-brain barrier that has since shut down, Peer Review has learned. Travecta’s board of directors “decided to wind down the company at the end of 2022 following negative data on the platform technology, so it is no longer in operation,” a Quince spokesperson says. Travecta pulled together $27 million in Series A funding before Ryan’s arrival in 2020 and appointed a quartet of scientific advisory board members in February 2022, but by October Ryan was out, according to his LinkedIn page. Quince’s aspirations in Alzheimer’s evaporated with safety issues and clinical holds; Ryan faced his own hurdles with the memory-robbing disease as CEO of Neurotrope.

→ When CRISPR Therapeutics president and chairman Rodger Novak announced on Thursday he would step aside on Sept. 15, shares $CRSP dipped by 6.7% before rebounding. Novak co-founded CRISPR with Emmanuelle Charpentier and Shaun Foy, and was CEO from 2013-17. Current chief executive Samarth Kulkarni will be the new chairman as decision dates for CRISPR and Vertex’s exa-cel are set for Dec. 8 (sickle cell disease) and March 30, 2024 (transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia). “I am proud of the rapid innovation and the strong execution at CRISPR Therapeutics over the last few years, which have positioned us as the preeminent gene editing company and brought us to the cusp of what could be the first approval for a CRISPR-based medicine,” Novak said in a statement.

Jaume Pons

→ ALX Oncology CEO Jaume Pons is stepping into the CSO slot, passing the baton to former Lightstone Ventures general partner and ex-Promedior CEO Jason Lettmann. Pons, who had been chief executive since ALX’s founding in 2015, will keep the title of president. Last month ALX dropped two studies of evorpacept in the increasingly thorny CD47 space: one in acute myeloid leukemia and the other in myelodysplastic syndromes. Lettmann joined the board of directors, which is chaired by co-founder Corey Goodman, in the early days of ALX.

Anna Protopapas

→ Anna Protopapas is retiring as CEO of Mersana Therapeutics after a tumultuous few months which saw the biotech grapple with five patient deaths and a partial clinical hold on its ovarian cancer drug upifitamab rilsodotin. Another Phase III failure in the UPLIFT trial further rattled Mersana’s stock in late July and about half the team was sent packing. Mersana board member Martin Huber, the CMO at Xilio Therapeutics since April 2020 and its president and head of R&D for the last year, will replace Protopapas on Sept. 11. CMO Arvin Yang and chief people officer Carla Poulson will also leave on Sept. 29, while Mersana makes additional adjustments to its staff. CFO Brian DeSchuytner will tack on the COO post; Mohan Bala will become chief development officer after two years as SVP, strategic product planning & program leadership; and controller Ashish Mandelia has been promoted to chief accounting officer.

Katarina Luptakova

→ Katarina Luptakova has taken over for Huber as CMO of Xilio, and Scott Coleman has been elevated to chief development officer at René Russo’s I/O player. Luptakova originally came to Xilio in late 2021 as VP, clinical research after leading clinical development at Constellation Pharmaceuticals. The Tesaro clinical research alum was eventually bumped up to SVP, medical at Xilio in October 2022. Coleman worked on sotatercept at Acceleron before joining Xilio last summer as SVP, nonclinical development.

Cynthia Pussinen

→ Philip Toleikis has ended his 14-year tenure as president and CEO of AstraZeneca’s cell therapy research partner Sernova, but he’ll stay with the company as chief technology officer. His successor is Cynthia Pussinen, the ex-chief technical officer for Spark who’s been a CEO before with Ipsen’s US subsidiaries Ipsen Biomeasure and Ipsen Biosciences. She’s an 18-year Pfizer vet who also served as Honeywell’s global VP and general manager, life sciences and specialty chemicals. Sernova said in June that five patients dropped their insulin use after receiving its “cell pouch” treatment in a Phase I/II study.

→ In case you missed it, a couple of big names made highly-anticipated moves, and there was a surprise exit at one of the Swiss pharma giants:

Jacob Thaysen

Illumina has finally found a successor to Francis deSouza, appointing Jacob Thaysen from Agilent Technologies as CEO. Some analysts were surprised that Illumina didn’t dip into its Rolodex of former employees or go with a more seasoned choice, but Bench International CEO Denise DeMan told Endpoints that Thaysen’s “style is very shoulder-to-shoulder” and that he’ll bring “some healing” to the DNA sequencing company that’s been buffeted by Carl Icahn’s activist fight and hard-charging smaller competitors. Read more details from Jared Whitlock here.

Jane Grogan

Biogen boss Chris Viehbacher decided to split the research and development functions at the beginning of this year, and he has the last piece of the puzzle in place with Genentech alum Jane Grogan as head of research. Grogan has held CSO roles at ArsenalBio and Graphite Bio before jumping to Biogen, which has pruned its pipeline and finally made some M&A noise with a $7.3 billion deal for Reata Pharmaceuticals after Viehbacher told reporters in February that the company had “lost its way” in the last couple years. Head of development Priya Singhal had been pinch-hitting in the research role.

Marie-France Tschudin

Finally, Novartis announced that Marie-France Tschudin is leaving on Sept. 15, less than a year and a half after the Big Pharma’s major reorg that saw Tschudin go from president of the pharma business unit to president, innovative medicines international and chief commercial officer. Patrick Horber, who’s held a variety of leadership positions at AbbVie for the past decade, will replace Tschudin “later this year.” Horber is currently AbbVie’s president of immunology and was promoted to SVP in July.

→ Takeda’s IBD partner Engitix has poached Christopher Stevenson from J&J and named him CSO. For the past five years, Stevenson had been J&J’s VP, global head of pharmaceutical sciences for interventional oncology and he also worked for Janssen in previous roles. Engitix and Takeda first joined forces to tackle NASH three years ago, and then Mike Platt-backed Engitix raised a $54 million Series A in January 2022 before expanding its partnership with the Japanese pharma into IBD three months later.

Dymeka Harrison

→ Led by ex-FDA commish Stephen Hahn, Flagship’s Harbinger Health is fleshing out its C-suite with three more execs: Dymeka Harrison (chief commercial officer) is the ex-VP of global strategic marketing for Abbott and was recently the commercial chief at Roche sub Foundation Medicine, which acknowledged in April that it eliminated 135 jobs. Matt Sargent (CBO) spent a decade with Biotheranostics and Hologic, first as Biotheranostics’ chief commercial officer and later Hologic’s VP of commercial oncology when Hologic purchased Biotheranostics in 2021. And Gisela Paulsen (COO) had a 15-year career with Genentech/Roche before her roles at Exact Sciences (general manager, precision oncology) and Oncocyte (president and COO).

Jörg Schüttrumpf

→ Spanish blood plasma giant Grifols has tapped Jörg Schüttrumpf as chief scientific innovation officer. Schüttrumpf held several positions in an 11-year period at Grifols’ German subsidiary Biotest, including CSO and head of R&D. Although a member of the Grifols family is no longer leading the company — Thomas Glanzmann was named CEO in May — Victor Grifols Deu and Raimon Grifols Roura are still on the leadership team.

Charlotte Owens

→ Merck women’s health spinoff Organon has made two key hires with Juan Camilo Arjona Ferreira as CMO and Charlotte Owens as head of medical affairs and outcomes research. An OB/GYN by trade, Arjona Ferreira was a senior project leader in women’s health for Merck in the early 2010s and led US clinical development for Shionogi from 2014-17. He then became CMO of Myovant, which received FDA nods for uterine fibroids (Myfembree) and advanced prostate cancer (Orgovyx). Owens left her role as therapeutic area lead, women’s health at AbbVie in May 2021 to become VP and head of Takeda’s Center for Health Equity and Patient Affairs.

Cheryl Gault

→ Rapport Therapeutics is one of several biotechs on IPO watch following a $150 million Series B, and the neuro upstart has welcomed Cheryl Gault as COO. Her involvement with Peter Hecht companies spanned 12 years, first at Ironwood and then at Cyclerion, where she was promoted to operations chief in 2021. Wendy Young, a GV advisor and the former SVP, small molecule drug discovery for Genentech, has joined Rapport’s scientific advisory board.

Kendra Adams

→ Kendra Adams will take over for Novartis alum Lauren White as CFO of C4 Therapeutics on Sept. 18. Adams earns this promotion after nearly three years as C4’s SVP, investor relations & corporate communications, and she’s also been an investor relations leader for Amgen, Ariad Pharmaceuticals and Agios. White’s appointment at C4 was above the fold in a May 2021 edition of Peer Review and she will “pursue a new role with a commercial-stage pharmaceutical company,” according to the press release.

Ambaw Bellete

→ Irvine, CA-based CG Oncology has lined up three new execs after its $105 million crossover round last month: Upjohn and Sanofi alum Ambaw Bellete (president and COO) is the one-time operations chief at FerGene, where Vijay Kasturi (CMO) was once SVP of scientific affairs. Kasturi comes to CG Oncology after two years as the medical affairs leader for Aveo Oncology, which was sold to Korea’s LG Chem for $566 million in cash last fall. And Swapnil Bhargava (chief technical officer) crossed the border from Seattle to Vancouver when he became SVP of CMC development and GMP manufacturing at AbCellera in April 2022. Earlier, he finished up an eight-year run at Seagen with a promotion to VP for drug substance process development.

→ After picking up a licensing deal with J&J in July for its lead radioenhancer product, Nanobiotix is back, and this time has tapped Louis Kayitalire as CMO. Kayitalire was the former CMO of F-star and before that, he held leadership roles at Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly, where he helped with the product registration for Gemzar, Alimta, Erbitux and Opdivo.

William Duke

→ Trying to get off the mat with multiple Covid-19 antibody candidates after the failure of ADG20 when it was known as Adagio, Invivyd has selected William Duke as CFO. Duke’s travels as finance chief have taken him to Apexigen, which antibody-drug conjugate developer Pyxis Oncology purchased in May, and now-defunct Flagship company Kaleido Biosciences. The former CFO of Invivyd, Jane Henderson, is now with Nasdaq newcomer Apogee Therapeutics.

→ A flood of job cuts at Rain Oncology after a Phase III flop with its dedifferentiated liposarcoma drug milademetan included medical chief Richard Bryce, but clearing skies are ahead for Bryce as he takes the CMO job at enGene. He was also chief medical and scientific officer for Puma Biotechnology and senior director of clinical science with Onyx Pharmaceuticals. In May, a SPAC from Forbion combined with enGene, a non-viral gene therapy developer led by CEO Jason Hanson and president and COO Alex Nichols, who ran Mythic Therapeutics. Hanson was a founding director at Mythic and an advisory board member.

Neil Bander

→ Radioantibody startup Convergent Therapeutics, which picked up $90 million in May, has made some changes to its leadership team. The company’s founder, Neil Bander, is moving from his role as chief scientific advisor to CSO. In addition, the company also enlisted Eric Sullivan as CFO and Dimitris Voliotis as SVP of clinical development. Sullivan has prior CFO experience, having served in the role at TCR² Therapeutics and Triplet Therapeutics. He also has stints with Gemini Therapeutics, Oncorus, bluebird bio and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals on his résumé. Meanwhile, Voliotis makes his way to Convergent from Zentalis, where he was SVP & head of global development. He also has 18 years of experience from Eisai and Bayer.

→ London AAV gene therapy developer Purespring Therapeutics has filled out its leadership team with Fredrik Erlandsson as CMO and Peter Mulcahy as chief people officer. Erlandsson had been in charge of global clinical development at CSL Vifor, and he was a global clinical lead for AstraZeneca. Mulcahy comes to the kidney disease specialist from GSK, where he was a human resources VP for chief digital and technology officer Shobie Ramakrishnan. Under first-year CEO Julian Hanak, Purespring also named Sachin Kelkar as CFO in early August.

Scott Burrows

→ Aeglea BioTherapeutics struggled to stay afloat and was down to 10 staffers until it bought Spyre Therapeutics to battle it out in the TL1A space with Merck and Prometheus’ MK-7240 (previously PRA-023) and Telavant’s RVT-3101. Aeglea doesn’t have a CEO, and Jonathan Alspaugh is stepping down as president and CFO, but Scott Burrows is taking over as finance chief and Heidy Abreu King-Jones is on board as chief legal officer and corporate secretary. Burrows is a 15-year Amgen vet who just left Arcutis Biotherapeutics — part of an active week for CFO departures — while King-Jones held the same title at Sanofi’s M&A prize Provention Bio and brings additional legal experience from Sarepta and Axcella.

→ Jay Varma, who helped craft New York City’s Covid-19 response during the height of the pandemic in 2020-21, has been named CMO at Siga Technologies, the maker of the smallpox drug Tpoxx that was also used during the rise of mpox cases last year. Varma is the former director of the Cornell Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response at Weill Cornell Medicine, and he’s close to completing his first year on Siga’s board of directors.

Nils Debus

→ German immuno-oncology biotech iOmx Therapeutics has recruited Bayer business development vet Nils Debus as business chief. He left his first CBO gig at OSE Immunotherapeutics in December after a couple months on the job, and at the end of his nine years with Boehringer Ingelheim, Debus served as corporate director, transactions & contract management.

Eric Dai

→ Eric Dai has moved over to the investment team at Dimension, the VC tells Endpoints. Dai spent almost a year as an analyst at a16z Bio + Health, where LifeMine Therapeutics CEO Greg Verdine is a venture partner. Dimension unveiled its $350 million fund in January, and co-founder Adam Goulburn told Kyle LaHucik its goal is to “be a lighthouse firm for the digitization of the life sciences industry.”

Innes Meldrum

→ AdhereTech has pegged Innes Meldrum as president and CEO, taking over from Chris O’Brien. Not his first time in the top spot, Meldrum briefly served in the role at Reset Pharmaceuticals. Meldrum’s previous experience also includes a role as SVP and CCO of Otsuka Pharmaceuticals North America and commercial VP of Orexo.

Kristie Grebe

→ Swiss autoimmune biotech Anokion has handed out three promotions. Kristie Grebe (joined in 2019) is now CSO, while Mike DiLeo (joined in 2018) is SVP, corporate and business development and Nicole Luosey (joined in August) is SVP, product and development operations. Grebe formerly held roles at Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie, while DiLeo was with Tesaro and Dyax. Luosey had gigs at Cadent Therapeutics, Replimune, Syntimmune, EMD Serono and Dyax.

→ Evgen Pharma has named Toni Hanninen as interim CFO, following the retirement of Richard Moulson in July. Hanninen previously served as finance chief at Faron Pharmaceuticals. Additionally, Evgen announced that its non-executive chair Barry Clare is retiring and that Susan Foden has been appointed to serve in his role in the interim. Foden had previous gigs at Vectura and BerGenBio and, most recently, was chair of Neurocentrx.

Pascal Touchon

→ On Oct. 4, Atara Biotherapeutics CEO Pascal Touchon will replace vTv Therapeutics chief Paul Sekhri on Ipsen’s board of directors. This appointment is right on the heels of Howard Mayer’s retirement as R&D chief on Sept. 22. Christelle Huguet, a longtime Pfizer vet and the head of research, external innovation and early development at Ipsen since May 2020, has been promoted to Mayer’s position.

Sara Kenkare-Mitra

→ Sara Kenkare-Mitra has punched her ticket to the board of directors at kidney disease biotech Unicycive Therapeutics. In December 2021, Kenkare-Mitra was named president and head of R&D at Alector following a 23-year tenure at Genentech.

→ Duchenne biotech Capricor Therapeutics has been adding new board members left and right, bringing Michael Kelliher into the fold this week. Kelliher is group VP, M&A and business development at Horizon, which no longer has the FTC looking over its shoulder as the agency removed the barricades from Amgen and Horizon’s $28 billion deal. Capricor also elected Paul Auwaerter and Philip Gotwals to the board in July.

Russell Greig

→ Oxford spinout Nucleome Therapeutics, the drug discovery biotech looking into the “dark” regions of the human genome, has picked up Russell Greig as non-executive chair of its board. Greig previously had a three-decade-long stint at GSK, where he was president of the international pharmaceuticals division. Greig was also former president of SR One.

Dorothy Clarke

→ J&J vet Dorothy Clarke has made her way onto the board of directors of Eterna Therapeutics. During her over 20-year tenure with J&J, Clarke held a variety of roles, including assistant general counsel in the regulatory and medical devices groups, chief privacy officer, and chief compliance officer for medical devices & diagnostics.

→ Imvax has saved a seat on its board of directors for Stephen Webster, who is replacing David Andrews. Andrews still remains the company’s CMO. Webster is the former CFO of Spark and SVP and CFO of Optimer Pharmaceuticals and Adolor Corporation. Webster also has seats on the boards of Cullinan Oncology and NextCure.

→ Pain player Allay Therapeutics has brought on Nicole Vitullo to its board of directors. Vitullo is currently venture partner at Arboretum Ventures and also sits on the boards of Esperion Therapeutics and Hinge Bio. Her prior board seats include Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Marinus Pharmaceuticals.

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