Jay Bradner’s NIBR exit sets off a succession plan at Merck; Dyne and MorphoSys fill major R&D roles

Jay Bradner

→ In the Big Pharma world, companies like J&J and Merck have experienced a pronounced sea change in leadership over a two-year period, and you can begin to say the same at Novartis, which dismissed head of development John Tsai and head of oncology Susanne Schaffert as part of CEO Vas Narasimhan’s wide-ranging restructuring plan. The next shoe to drop is Jay Bradner, the president of the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, who is leaving his post on Halloween and passing the baton to Fiona Marshall, Merck’s SVP and global head of discovery sciences, preclinical development and translational medicine.

Fiona Marshall

In a LinkedIn post that made the rounds on Thursday, Bradner said, “I cannot properly express my gratitude to all of my 5,600 incredible NIBR colleagues. In the darkest and most isolating moments of the pandemic, we leaned on each other and flourished personally and scientifically, with grace and often good humor. Thank you, NIBR, for the gift of your warm confidence, generous advices and total commitment to our research; it has been humbling and inspiring to be your leader.”

As Marshall ventures off to NIBR, Merck has her successor all figured out. George Addona joined the pharma giant — from NIBR, coincidentally — in 2008 and has incrementally taken on bigger roles ever since: For almost three years, Addona has been Merck’s VP of quantitative biosciences. You can read more of our coverage about each of these appointments here and here.

Francesco Bibbiani

→ Now that the clinical hold has been lifted on its therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy — a field that has seen its share of similar actions from the FDA — Dyne Therapeutics has tapped Francesco Bibbiani as SVP, head of development. Bibbiani had led global clinical development at Ultragenyx, which just bought its Angelman syndrome partner GeneTx in July, since February 2021 and has held other leadership positions in clinical development at PTC Therapeutics and Eisai.

Tim Demuth

→ MorphoSys has a potential blockbuster on its hands with the myelofibrosis drug pelabresib from its Constellation Pharmaceuticals buyout, but the German biotech will push forward without Malte Peters, who will retire as chief R&D officer at the end of the year. Schooled in Germany with a four-year run as Merck KGaA’s head of global clinical development oncology, Tim Demuth will take over for Peters at the Monjuvi maker. Peer Review told you about where Demuth landed after he left the German pharma, taking the CMO job at Pieris Pharmaceuticals in August 2021. This planned transition comes after MorphoSys struck a deal to ship off two antibody programs to ARCH’s Human Immunology Biosciences in June.

Alix Hart

→ Pfizer has poached Drew Panayiotou from Alphabet’s Verily, naming him biopharma global chief marketing officer while Verily promotes Alix Hart to his previous post. Panayiotou, the chief marketing officer at Verily since late 2020, had been president of Chick-Fil-A subsidiary Red Wagon Ventures and was also the US chief marketing officer for Best Buy from 2009-13. Hart is a former Best Buy exec in her own right who became Verily’s head of content and digital strategy last year after serving as Nvidia’s global head of digital marketing from 2016-21. Beth Bulik has more on both appointments.

Cigall Kadoch

→ With Cigall Kadoch diving into her new job as an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute on Sept. 6, she has resigned as a board member at the biotech she co-founded, Foghorn Therapeutics. She’ll still be on the SAB at Foghorn, which has sustained a regulatory double whammy with a partial clinical hold in May that graduated to a full clinical hold last week with its blood cancer drug FHD-286.

Kerry Blanchard

→ Putting a bow on a couple of CEO departures Endpoints News reported on last Friday, Kerry Blanchard walked away from Everest Medicines shortly after hitting the mountaintop in China with Gilead-partnered Trodelvy, gaining an approval in the country for unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. Everest president and CFO Ian Woo will be interim chief until the Shanghai biotech finds a permanent successor.

Austin, TX-based Aeglea BioTherapeutics is trimming its staff by 25%, while chief executive Anthony Quinn scales back to an advisory role and general counsel Jim Kastenmayer takes charge as interim president and CEO. The FDA threw down the stop sticks with a refusal-to-file letter for Aeglea’s arginase 1 deficiency drug pegzilarginase in June.

And then there’s Nordic Nanovector, trying to keep its head above water after waving the white flag with the PARADIGME study of its lead asset Betalutin in early July. CEO Erik Skullerud is out, and Malene Brondberg will step in temporarily as she continues her CFO duties — and as the Oslo biotech huddles up with Carnegie Investment Bank to “explore strategic options.”

Jeff Cislini

→ You say you want a Revolution: Weeks removed from an upsized public offering totaling $230 million, RAS-mutated cancer biotech Revolution Medicines out of the Bay Area has selected Daniel Simon as CBO while promoting Jack Anders to CFO and Jeff Cislini to general counsel. During Simon’s seven years with Guardant Health, he was SVP, biopharma business development and has worked in corporate development at Onyx Pharmaceuticals. Formerly SVP, finance and the principal financial and accounting officer for CEO Mark Goldsmith, Anders logged 12 years at Depomed before pivoting to Revolution Medicines in 2018. Cislini, the deputy general counsel since 2020, is a one-time legal exec at Atara Biotherapeutics.

Arun Upadhyay

→ Ocugen wasn’t in the FDA’s good graces when they faced a $10,000 fine for not unveiling trial results, but now that the clinical hold has been lifted on its Covid-19 vaccine candidate Covaxin, the Malvern, PA biotech has ushered in Robert Hopkins as CMO and promoted Arun Upadhyay to CSO. Hopkins has been around the block with Merck Research Laboratories and Emergent BioSolutions, among other companies, and in August 2021 he was elevated to medical chief at Adaptive Phage Therapeutics. Upadhyay joined Shankar Musunuri’s squad in 2017 and had been running R&D at Ocugen since December.

Eugene Kennedy

→ With its stock price $GRTX languishing in the penny stock range after a Phase III pratfall with its lead drug avasopasem last October, Pennsylvania’s Galera Therapeutics has appointed Eugene Kennedy as CMO. Jon Holmlund, Galera’s medical chief since 2012, is retiring as the year comes to a close. Kennedy, the medical chief for the last year and a half at Innovative Cellular Therapeutics, tackled the same role at Lumos Pharma.

→ Regenerative medicine company Seraxis has reeled in Paul Strumph as CMO. Strumph brings experience from his times at Metavant Sciences (CMO), Lexicon Pharmaceuticals (VP, clinical development), Quintiles (North Americal regional CMO), and Juveniles Diabetes Research Foundation (CMO). Strumph jumpstarted his career at GSK, Merck KGaA/EMD Serono and Bristol Myers Squibb.

Jean-François Fournier

→ Quebec-based Valeo Pharma has recruited Kyle Steiger as chief commercial officer and Jean-François Fournier as business unit head — ophthalmology. Both are Novartis Canada alums: Steiger was VP of ophthalmology to cap off 19 years with the Big Pharma, and Fournier had spent the last three years as commercial director, marketing & sales. Before his time with Novartis Canada, Steiger was briefly the national sales director for Ipsen’s oncology portfolio.

Ray Stapleton

→ After appointing Inhibitor Therapeutics chairman Mark Watson to the board of directors in early August, Vaxart has welcomed Ray Stapleton as chief technology officer. Stapleton comes to the South San Francisco vaccine maker from Genocea Biosciences, where he held the same title and was EVP. He also rose through the ranks in 15 years at Merck, becoming executive director, global vaccines technology and engineering until he left the pharma giant in 2015.

Rob Quinn

→ Advancing its lead asset — a drug for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A named PXT3003 — into Phase III, French neuro biotech Pharnext has installed GSK financial vet Rob Quinn as CFO, while Valérie Worrall has moved on “to pursue other interests” after more than six months on the job. Quinn’s most recent gig as finance chief was with BenevolentAI, and he’s also been CFO for Silence Therapeutics.

Behzad Mahdavi

→ Ginkgo Bioworks has lined up Behzad Mahdavi as SVP of biopharma manufacturing & life science tools after raiding the bargain bin and buying out Zymergen — which had endured a disastrous ride on the struggle bus — for $300 million in July. Mahdavi makes the leap to Ginkgo from Catalent, where the 13-year Lonza vet served as VP, global open innovation.

Scott Dixon

→ Not to be confused with the IndyCar superstar, Scott Dixon has reached the checkered flag as chief commercial officer of digital clinical trial outfit ObvioHealth. Dixon, who has worked at such companies as Oracle, WebMD and Parexel, spent the last year as chief revenue officer of Flywheel.io.

→ Texas-based Biote has lassoed in Samar Kamdar as CFO. Kamdar hops aboard after a stint as CFO of Slync.io and TaxAct. Prior to that, Kamdar had gigs at CROSSMARK, Availity, and PepsiCo.

Barry Lederman

→ Worldwide Clinical Trials has brought aboard Barry Lederman as CFO. This isn’t Lederman’s first time donning the CFO hat, having served in the role at Perimeter Solutions and Halo Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career, Lederman had gigs at Eisai and Nycomed and a 10-year run at Roche.

Kim Boericke

→ Clinical trial service provider THREAD is weaving in Kim Boericke to its leadership team as chief delivery officer. Boericke joins with experience from her times at Icon (president, Icon commercialization and outcomes), Quintiles (VP and managing director) and i3 Research (global VP).

→ Getting this year off to an auspicious start with a $100 million Series B round, UK cell and gene therapy manufacturer Ori Biotech has made a bevy of moves, starting with Kale Feeter and Lindsey Clarke as directors of business development.

Lindsey Clarke

Feeter comes to Ori from Cytiva, where he was enterprise business development leader, cell & gene therapy, while Clarke was Bio-Techne’s senior manager, global product marketing, cell & gene therapy. Ori has also enlisted Sartorius alum Quentin Vicard as director of product management, Brian Macauley as cloud platform lead, and ex-Autolus senior scientist Claire Horlock as principal scientist. Finally, Isabelle Rivière and Jason Bock are now members of the scientific advisory board.

→ ProKidney is bringing in a pro itself in the likes of Glenn Schulman as SVP of investor relations. Schulman previously served as VP of investor relations at X4 Pharmaceuticals and was SVP, investor relations and corporate communications at Aurinia Pharmaceuticals. Schulman has also held roles at Achillion Pharmaceuticals and CuraGen.

→ Avid Bioservices has recruited Pramthesh Patel as VP, process development. Patel, a 23-year vet from GSK, most recently served as senior director. Prior to that, Patel had a decade-long stint at Bristol Myers.

Natalie Mount

→ Gateway to a new chairperson: 16-year Pfizer vet Natalie Mount has been named to the position at St. Louis cell therapy outfit Wugen, replacing John McKearn, who will stay on the board. The ex-CSO of GammaDelta Therapeutics, Mount was also CEO of GammaDelta spinout Adaptate Biotherapeutics — two companies that have been sold to Takeda in the last year.

→ Taiyin Yang has joined the board of directors at Brii Biosciences after retiring from a career at Gilead that began in 1993. Former Sana exec Stacey Ma succeeded Yang as Gilead’s EVP of pharmaceutical development and manufacturing on July 18.

Helen Kim

→ Irish biotech Prothena has reserved space for Helen Kim — the former EVP of business development at Kite — on the board of directors. Since 2019, the ex-NGM Biopharmaceuticals CBO has been a senior director at Arie Belldegrun’s Vida Ventures. Novo Nordisk forked over $100 million upfront for Prothena’s ATTR amyloidosis drugs last summer.

→ Ex-Ferring US chief Paul Navarre has clinched a spot on the board of directors at Danish biotech Leo Pharma during a period of job cuts — up to 150 on the R&D team alone — and restructuring. After his 15 years at Procter & Gamble, Navarre held a string of leadership roles for a decade at Allergan and has been a strategic advisory board member at Flagship Pioneering.

→ Speaking of Flagship, the epigenetics-focused Omega Therapeutics has elected Rainer Boehm to the board of directors. Boehm finished up a long career at Novartis as chief commercial & medical affairs officer in 2017 and is a board member at Cellectis and Humanigen.

manufacturing
therapeutics
cell therapy
gene therapy
vaccines
cmo
pharmaceuticals
medical
biotech
pharma
fda
research
clinical trials
buy