Phil Vickers talks new role as head of Longwood’s Solu after Faze shutdown; Regeneron CFO to retire in February

Phil Vickers

Phil Vickers started last week as president and CEO of Solu Therapeutics, a Longwood Fund startup developing small molecule-antibody chimeras.

He takes the place of Longwood executive partner David Donabedian, who has taken the early CEO roles at a number of companies Longwood has backed, including Axial Therapeutics, ImmuneID and DEM BioPharma.

Vickers was previously head of Faze Medicines, a condensates biotech started by Third Rock that launched with $81 million in 2020 before shutting down at the end of last year.

At Solu, two things Vickers emphasizes are the range of the platform and pace to the clinic. “People in some cases have been trying to develop antibodies for many years against some extracellular portions of proteins,” he said, “and they’re just not able to raise therapeutic antibodies against them.”

Solu’s platform uses small molecules — which are better at tackling these targets — to link an antibody, which leads the cell to die. Vickers noted the same antibody can be used while the small molecule is exchanged, enabling the company to go after a wide range of diseases down the line.

Solu in-licensed its candidates from GSK, and closed a $31 million seed round in August. It plans to start with heme malignancies and hopes to be in the clinic within 18 months, Vickers said.

When asked about why Faze Medicines shut down just two years after launch, Vickers said, “The field that we were focusing on was very early-stage,” referring to biomolecular condensates — these membraneless compartments that play a wide range of roles in cells. Faze was trying to target these droplets in neurological disorders.

“It was challenging to move at the speed that we needed to in order to move quickly to get into IND. And so we had discussions within the management team and with the board as to what we could achieve within specific timeframes. And we aligned with the board that the challenges that were associated with doing that were not appropriate for the kind of financing that we need to go into the company to move those forward,” he said. “So we decided at that time to wind the company down.”

— Lei Lei Wu

Christopher Fenimore

→ Regeneron CFO Robert Landry is retiring in February, and Sanofi’s Dupixent partner has already decided to promote from within. Controller Christopher Fenimore, a Regeneron vet for 20 years who began as VP of financial planning and analysis, is slated to step into the role. Fenimore was elevated to controller in 2017 and then SVP in 2021. Meanwhile, Marc Tessier-Lavigne is no longer on Regeneron’s board after research misconduct led to his resignation as president of Stanford. GV’s David Schenkein and ex-IBM chief information officer Kathryn Guarini now own seats on a board that’s chaired by CEO Len Schleifer; Roy Vagelos ended his 28-year tenure as chairman in June.

Jason Cole

→ Jason Cole is a CEO for the first time, succeeding Ray Tabibiazar at gene therapy 3.0 biotech SalioGen Therapeutics. Cole also chairs the board at SalioGen and held a series of positions at bluebird bio from 2014-22, earning a promotion to chief strategy and financial officer in March 2022, only to leave the Skysona and Zynteglo maker seven months later. The revolving door at the CFO post has slowed somewhat for bluebird with the appointment of Chris Krawtschuk in November. Ex-FDA commish Mark McClellan, FogPharma CEO and ex-J&J R&D chief Mathai Mammen, and former Alnylam CEO John Maraganore make up the formidable executive advisory board at SalioGen, which hauled in a $115 million Series B at the beginning of 2022.

Nick Leschly

→ Cole’s former boss, Nick Leschly, is out as CEO of 2seventy bio but will chair the board. The bluebird bio spinout is cutting 176 roles, which equates to 40% of the staff, while it promotes finance chief Chip Baird to COO. In a press release, Leschly referred to the uphill battle that cell therapy has faced, something that new Cantor Fitzgerald addition and ex-Allogene CFO Eric Schmidt outlined when he spoke to Lei Lei Wu last week. But 2seventy is also feeling the heat from Carvykti, the CAR-T for multiple myeloma from J&J and Legend that racked up $117 million in sales in the second quarter. Sales of the BCMA CAR-T Abecma are expected to dip in the third quarter, but 2seventy is looking to broaden the label in triple-class exposed relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma as the Dec. 16 decision date looms. Leschly ran bluebird for 11 years before spinning off its oncology programs into 2seventy in 2021.

Amanda Kay

→ It’s been the summer of Flagship with one major appointment after another, and the biotech incubator is fitting in another one before the official start of fall with Amanda Kay as senior partner and chief business development officer. Kay jumps from Flagship’s own Metaphore Biotechnologies, where she was president and operating partner, and during her six years at Pfizer (2010-16), she was promoted to head of strategy and business planning for the inflammation and immunology research unit. Metaphore received the $50 million that’s become customary for Flagship startups when it launched in May. The hiring bonanza at Flagship reached its apex when ex-Bristol Myers Squibb R&D chief Rupert Vessey came along as chief scientist and executive partner. Peer Review also pointed the spotlight on new Ampersand Biomedicines CEO Jason Gardner — the ex-Magenta Therapeutics chief — and growth partner David Khougazian.

→ Former Eiger BioPharmaceuticals chief David Cory has resurfaced as CEO of Cincinnati-based LIB Therapeutics, a cardiovascular disease biotech that scored a Phase III win in August with its PCSK9 inhibitor lerodalcibep for heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH). Cory replaces LIB co-founder Evan Stein, who takes on the dual roles of COO and CSO. Cory had left Eiger in January after 14 years as chief executive. Since then, the company has adjusted its pipeline and, more recently, ended a Phase III trial. Layoffs in wake of the pipeline revamp affected 25% of the staff.

Laurie Stelzer

→ With former Arena Pharmaceuticals chief Amit Munshi at the controls and more than $300 million at its disposal, RNA outfit ReNAgade Therapeutics has selected Laurie Stelzer as CFO. We told you about Stelzer’s departure from Mirati three weeks ago, and she worked for Munshi in this same capacity until Pfizer paid $6.7 billion to buy Arena last year. Earlier, Stelzer had a 15-year career at Amgen, held multiple roles at Shire, and was finance chief for Halozyme from 2015-20.

→ NASH company Madrigal Pharmaceuticals has poached ex-Sanofi exec Bill Sibold to take over the ship as CEO, succeeding Paul Friedman, who will continue to serve on the company’s board. Sibold formerly served as EVP of specialty care at Sanofi, helping sustain double-digit growth in the unit and launch of Dupixent.

Bob Langer

→ Bob Langer, the MIT professor best known for co-founding the mRNA heavyweight Moderna along with a slew of other companies, has been named chairman of the scientific advisory board at Copenhagen-based Hervolution Therapeutics. Backed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Hervolution gets its name from its focus on human endogenous retroviruses, or HERVs.

Renée Galá

→ Dan Swisher is retiring as president and COO of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and CFO Renée Galá will be promoted to the positions on Oct. 1. According to an SEC filing, chief accounting officer Patricia Carr will be principal financial officer until Jazz finds Galá’s successor. Galá had a brief cup of coffee as CFO of Grail before she jumped over to Jazz in March 2020, and a series of posts at Theravance in a 12 ½-year period culminated in her promotion to finance chief. Swisher, the former CEO of Sunesis Pharmaceuticals from 2004-17, will celebrate his 10th anniversary as chairman of Cerus next month.

→ Mirum Pharmaceuticals, which picked up the bile acid products Cholbam and Chenodal from Travere in July, has recruited Swisher’s old colleague at Sunesis, Eric Bjerkholt, as CFO. In November 2020, we covered Bjerkholt’s previous CFO appointment at Chinook Therapeutics, the kidney disease player that Novartis purchased for $3.2 billion in cash this summer, and he’s the ex-finance chief of Aimmune.

Olivia Bloom

→ Ex-Editas Medicine finance leader Michelle Robertson will replace the retiring Olivia Bloom as CFO of Geron Sept. 25. Former Aveo Oncology CFO Erick Lucera took over from Robertson at the gene editing specialist on May 17; Robertson is a 16-year Genzyme veteran who joined Editas from Momenta in January 2020. Bloom’s career at Geron began in 1994 when she accepted a job as a senior financial analyst, and she would be promoted to CFO in 2012. She’s also been EVP of finance for the last nine years.

Katia Schlienger

→ Hookipa Pharma CMO Katia Schlienger will leave on Sept. 30, and board member Malte Peters will handle her responsibilities until a successor is named. You may recall that Peters retired in December as R&D chief of MorphoSys; besides Hookipa, the Novartis Oncology vet is also on the board of directors at Tango Therapeutics. Schlienger spent 14 years at Merck before she came to Hookipa as head of immuno-oncology. She was just promoted to CMO in January.

Michael Ports

→ Third Rock-backed cell therapy developer CARGO Therapeutics has poached its CSO from J&J’s Janssen. Michael Ports left Celgene in 2020 to tackle the role of senior director, cell therapy research at Janssen, and he would later be bumped up to VP and head of cell therapy discovery. Third Rock made its case in March that money is flowing in a once-desolate biotech landscape, as CARGO secured a hefty $200 million Series A before two other Third Rock upstarts bagged megarounds that same month.

Madhav Vasanthavada

→ Cleveland rocks, not just because of the Browns’ emphatic season-opening win over the Cincinnati Bengals but in this edition of Peer Review, as Abeona Therapeutics promotes Madhav Vasanthavada to chief commercial officer. He’ll also continue as head of business development, a position he’s held since June 2022. Vasanthavada helped lay the groundwork for the Breyanzi and Abecma launches as marketing leader for the global CAR-T franchise at Celgene and Bristol Myers. Earlier, he was in charge of marketing for the radiotherapy Xofigo at Bayer, which struck a deal in May with Bicycle Therapeutics in the same space.

Uneek Mehra

→ 4D Molecular Therapeutics CFO August Moretti has retired, clearing a path for Uneek Mehra to sign on as chief financial and business officer. Mehra had this title at Myovant and served as CFO and corporate treasurer at PACT Pharma from 2019-21. Astellas is giving 4DMT’s AAV vector a spin in a licensing deal that’s potentially worth $962 million. Meanwhile, the clinical hold on 4DMT’s Fabry disease gene therapy is still in place.

→ Chaired by ex-Bayer CEO Dieter Weinand, Eli Lilly and Daiichi Sankyo partner Confo Therapeutics has tapped Stephen Dowd as CBO. Dowd reaches the C-suite after a two-year run as Rallybio’s head of business development in Europe and numerous posts at Kymab, a biotech that Sanofi bought for $1.1 billion upfront in 2021.

Tai-An Lin

→ Waiting out a three-month delay on the FDA’s verdict for its desmoid tumor drug nirogacestat, Pfizer spinout SpringWorks Therapeutics has installed Tai-An Lin as CSO. Lin has made the Big Pharma rounds at Roche, Janssen and Bristol Myers. He’s spent the last two years as Black Diamond Therapeutics’ SVP, translational science and discovery biology, having come in 2019 as head of biology. The decision date for nirogacestat has been moved from Aug. 27 to Nov. 27.

Rebecca Weil

→ Oculis said in August that its eye drop OCS-01 cleared the bar in Phase III for inflammation and pain after cataract surgery, and as it looks ahead to a possible launch in the US, CEO Riad Sherif has brought in a chief commercial officer who’s familiar with the ophthalmology space. Rebecca Weil is a Novartis eye care alum who was global head of pharma marketing & strategy for Bausch + Lomb and oversaw the ophthalmic businesses at Alcon and Shire. Weil had been the head of global marketing for Idorsia since July 2019.

→ Mitchell Jones has been named CMO of Carlsbad, CA-based Palisade Bio, which dismissed 20% of the team last year and prioritized its lead asset LB1148 to preserve cash. Jones says goodbye to Chemomab Therapeutics a little more than nine months after he became VP of corporate development & strategy, and he’s also led clinical discovery and development at Finch Therapeutics. Palisade changed CEOs after the reorg, and LB1148 suffered a Phase II miss in August for the reduction of post-surgical abdominal adhesions.

Laura Carter

→ San Francisco-based Character Biosciences has brought in Laura Carter as CSO. We last saw Carter in Peer Review when she succeeded Luisa Salter-Cid as chief scientist of Gossamer Bio in April 2021, and prior to that promotion, she spent two years as Gossamer’s SVP of research and translational biology. Character Bio changed its name from Clover Therapeutics and raised an $18 million Series A round in May 2022.

→ Testing its small molecule Sarconeos in patients with sarcopenia and Covid-19, Biophytis has introduced AstraZeneca marketing alum Edouard Bieth as CBO. From 2016-22, Bieth was general manager for Tillotts Pharma in France and the Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) region. The Paris biotech is also bringing in Claudia Ferreira as medical director.

Vito Palombella

→ Lexington, MA-based Triana Biomedicines is welcoming a trio of execs: Triana has appointed Vito Palombella as CSO, Reza Mazhari as CBO and Brian Jones to its scientific advisory board. Palombella served in the role of CSO at Surface Oncology and Infinity Pharmaceuticals. Mazhari comes from Novartis, where he served as head of search and evaluation for oncology, while Jones most recently served as CSO at Cedilla Therapeutics.

Catherine Isted

→ Back in May, London-based AI drug discovery company BenevolentAI laid off 180 staffers as part of a restructuring program. Now, the company has brought on Catherine Isted as CFO. Isted is the former CEO of ReNeuron, having also served as the company’s CFO. Prior to that, she was with Oxford Biomedica.

Rachel Rimsky Rubin

→ Oviva Therapeutics has recruited Rachel Rimsky Rubin as its COO. Rubin makes her way to the New York-based company from Roivant Social Ventures, where she served as VP of investments and programs. Before that, Rubin was VP of the alternative investments and manager selection business at Goldman Sachs.

→ DiaMedica Therapeutics has appointed Ambarish Shah as chief technology officer. Shah joins the team from CSL Seqirus, where he was VP and head of global vaccines development. Shah’s experience also includes roles at Bristol Myers, AstraZeneca, GSK and Pfizer.

Melissa Rhodes

→ Avalyn Pharma has picked up Melissa Rhodes as COO. Rhodes hails from Kriya Therapeutics., where she was president & chief development officer, metabolic diseases & neurology. Earlier in her career, she was with Aerami Therapeutics, Altavant Sciences, Roivant, GSK and Erimos Pharmaceuticals.

→ London-based Myricx Bio has named Robert McLeod as VP clinical development. McLeod most recently served as senior director and global clinical lead at Daiichi Sankyo, and he previously held roles at Emergent BioSolutions, Novartis and Chiron.

Alex Gorsky

→ Ex-J&J chairman and CEO Alex Gorsky has tacked on another board appointment, this time as lead director of Neurotech. In addition to this new gig at the Rhode Island-based chronic eye disease biotech, Gorsky is on the boards of Apple, IBM, JPMorgan Chase and the Travis Manion Foundation. Gorsky handed the reins to Joaquin Duato twice at J&J, first as CEO in January 2022 and again as chairman a year later.

→ Stockholm-based OncoZenge has a new board and a new CEO in hopes of righting the ship, Endpoints has learned. The company’s stock has dropped 80% in the last two years due to regulatory and manufacturing issues related to its oral pain med. Whereas the previous board had wanted to shut down the program and seek strategic alternatives such as a reverse merger or liquidation, the new leaders will carry on with the drug. CEO Paul de Potocki has been replaced by Stian Kildal, with the support of new board members Daniel Ehrenstråhle, Christoph Nowak and Niclas Holmgren. 

→ Chiesi’s Fabry disease partner Protalix BioTherapeutics has welcomed ex-F-star CEO Eliot Forster as chairman of the board as Zeev Bronfeld retires. Forster also chairs the boards of Ochre Bio, a liver disease biotech that raised $30 million in Series A financing last fall, and Avacta.

Jim Robinson

→ Former Urovant CEO Jim Robinson will take a seat on the board of directors at Eledon Pharmaceuticals on Oct. 1. Before he led Urovant, one of several Vants that are now part of Sumitomo Pharma America, Robinson was president and COO of Paragon Biosciences and Alkermes. He’s also a board member at UroGen.

→ Another startup that pulled together $30 million last year, Sensorium Therapeutics, has added David Southwell to the board of directors. Southwell stepped down as CEO of TScan Therapeutics, the TCR player that removed the interim tag from former chief scientist Gavin MacBeath in late May. Southwell is a longtime member of the board at PTC Therapeutics and has another seat with Rocket Pharmaceuticals.

→ Arcutis interim CFO John Smither has resigned from the board of directors at eFFECTOR Therapeutics, while Achieve Life Sciences co-founder Caroline Loewy has been appointed to the board. In addition to eFFECTOR, Loewy sits on the boards of CymaBay, PhaseBio and Phoenix Biotech Acquisition Corp.

→ Italian biotech AAVantgarde Bio has reserved a seat on its board of directors for Doug Kerr. Kerr is Generation Bio’s CMO and previously had stints at Shire and Biogen.

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