Matthew Ros

→ The ouster of for­mer Im­munomedics ex­ec Us­ama Ma­lik cre­at­ed a CEO open­ing at Fore Bio­ther­a­peu­tics, which is tak­ing aim at BRAF mu­ta­tions fol­low­ing a re­brand last year. Matthew Ros has now stepped up to the tee box as CEO and a mem­ber of the board af­ter Ma­lik was em­broiled in an in­sid­er trad­ing scan­dal dur­ing his time at Im­munomedics that he chose to ad­dress in a rather cryp­tic LinkedIn post in De­cem­ber. A 17-year Bris­tol My­ers Squibb vet, Ros left Sanofi Gen­zyme in 2016 to be­come COO of Epizyme, where he had since been chief strat­e­gy and busi­ness of­fi­cer. Fore Bio, once known as di­ag­nos­tics com­pa­ny Nov­el­lus­Dx and chaired by for­mer Sanofi ex­ec Di­eter Weinand, is in a Phase I/IIa tri­al with its lead can­di­date FORE8394.

Brad Mar­gus

→ Brad Mar­gus is out as CEO of Take­da CNS spin­out Cere­vance, and Craig Thomp­son stands at the ready to take his place. Mar­gus will slide in­to the ex­ec­u­tive chair­man post at the end of this month and hand the reins to Thomp­son, the Pfiz­er and Mer­ck alum who got out of Dodge as chief ex­ec­u­tive of Neu­rana Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, where a re­cent Phase III bel­lyflop with tolperisone cast a bleak out­look on the com­pa­ny’s fu­ture. Be­fore his turn as Neu­rana’s chief, Thomp­son was pres­i­dent and CEO of An­thera Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and the COO at Tetraphase.

Christo­pher Sla­pak

→ Vor Bio CMO Christo­pher Sla­pak in­tends to re­tire with en­roll­ment in progress in its Phase I/IIa tri­al for acute myeloid leukemia pa­tients with high risk of re­lapse. The biotech from sci­en­tif­ic founder Sid­dhartha Mukher­jee is search­ing for can­di­dates to suc­ceed Sla­pak, the long­time Eli Lil­ly ex­ec who shed the in­ter­im med­ical chief la­bel at Vor in Ju­ly 2020. “Our plan has al­ways been for Dr. Sla­pak to build a team and in­fra­struc­ture to suc­cess­ful­ly ini­ti­ate the VBP101 clin­i­cal tri­al,” Vor chief Robert Ang said in a state­ment. “Now that we are ac­tive­ly re­cruit­ing with da­ta ex­pect­ed in the sec­ond half of 2022, we are mov­ing in­to an ex­e­cu­tion phase of the study. We have ex­pand­ed our clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions ca­pa­bil­i­ty and ex­per­tise to sup­port this ac­tiv­i­ty and now is a nat­ur­al time for this tran­si­tion.”

Joseph Ro­manel­li

→ Back in Feb­ru­ary, Mer­ck an­nounced that three peo­ple would re­place Frank Clyburn as the ex­ec left to serve as CEO at DuPont-ma­jor­i­ty owned In­ter­na­tion­al Fla­vors & Fra­grances (IFF). At the time, Mer­ck plucked up two ex­ecs from with­in, Arpa Garay (chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer, hu­man health) and Jan­nie Oost­huizen (pres­i­dent, Mer­ck Hu­man Health). And now, a for­mer Mer­ck ex­ec is com­ing back to take the third spot. Joseph Ro­manel­li was with Mer­ck for 25 years be­fore he took off less than a year ago to be­come CEO at Shang­hai-based Ji Xing Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Dur­ing his time at Ji Xing, Ro­manel­li helped lead the com­pa­ny to ink its li­cens­ing deal with LENZ Ther­a­peu­tics for its two pres­by­opia can­di­dates.

Now, in his new role, Ro­manel­li will man­age Mer­ck’s $22 bil­lion in­ter­na­tion­al Hu­man Health busi­ness and a team of 14,000 staffers. All three ex­ecs will re­port di­rect­ly to CEO Robert Davis.

Mean­while, the found­ing CEO at Ji Xing, Pe­ter Fong, will be re­tak­ing the reins at the com­pa­ny af­ter Ro­manel­li’s de­par­ture.

Ken­neth At­tie

→ Things aren’t look­ing good over at Imara. So much so that the com­pa­ny is lay­ing off 83% of its staff at the end of this quar­ter — the com­pa­ny’s SVP and CMO Ken­neth At­tie among them — leav­ing Imara with a mea­ger 6 em­ploy­ees and a hunt for strate­gic op­tions to look at next steps. The axe fol­lows the Phase IIb flops ear­li­er this month. At­tie joined the com­pa­ny in Jan­u­ary 2021 af­ter more than a decade at Ac­celeron as VP, med­ical re­search.

Leonard Mazur

→ Citius Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals is shak­ing things up at the top as the board has hand­ed Leonard Mazur the con­trols as CEO and chair­man. Start­ing May 1, My­ron Hol­u­bi­ak — Mazur’s pre­de­ces­sor and the for­mer pres­i­dent of Roche Lab­o­ra­to­ries — will be tran­si­tion­ing to ex­ec­u­tive vice chair­man of the board. Along with Hol­u­bi­ak, Mazur co-found­ed Leonard-Meron Bio­sciences, which merged with Citius in 2016. Mazur al­so found­ed and was CEO of Gen­e­sis Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Along with Mazur’s move, Jaime Bar­tushak will al­so be tak­ing on re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as CBO in ad­di­tion to his cur­rent CFO du­ties. Fi­nal­ly, Citius has wel­comed Michael McGuire — who de­vot­ed more than a quar­ter cen­tu­ry to Roche — as VP, pro­gram leader for an­ti-in­fec­tives. McGuire di­rect­ed the Tam­i­flu team at Roche Lab­o­ra­to­ries and joins the com­pa­ny from Melin­ta Ther­a­peu­tics, where he served as SVP com­mer­cial, gov­ern­ment af­fairs and cus­tomer en­gage­ment.

Humphrey Gard­ner

→ Ear­li­er this month, Har­bour Bio­Med en­trust­ed its CLDN18.2xCD3 bis­pe­cif­ic an­ti­body HBM7022 to As­traZeneca in a deal worth $25 mil­lion up­front, and the Shang­hai com­pa­ny has tapped Humphrey Gard­ner as CMO. The no­madic Gard­ner has held po­si­tions at nu­mer­ous com­pa­nies in the last decade, start­ing with As­traZeneca, where he was VP trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine, ear­ly clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. In that time pe­ri­od he’s al­so been SVP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Karyopharm; chief, med­ical on­col­o­gy for Evelo Bio­sciences; CMO at Sil­i­con Ther­a­peu­tics; and a CMO in res­i­dence for Roivant.

Al­bert Sey­mour

→ Fac­ing a rocky road with its phenylke­tonuria gene ther­a­py that they’re try­ing to repave, Ho­mol­o­gy Med­i­cines has pro­mot­ed Al­bert Sey­mour to pres­i­dent of the com­pa­ny. Sey­mour, the chief sci­en­tist at Ho­mol­o­gy since 2016, was SVP and head of glob­al re­search and non­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment with Shire af­ter 13 years at Pfiz­er. The FDA put the clamps on Ho­mol­o­gy’s phenylke­tonuria tri­als in late Feb­ru­ary, with Bio­Marin run­ning in­to sim­i­lar reg­u­la­to­ry head­winds in this in­di­ca­tion a week ear­li­er.

→ The Maraganore Me­ter has resur­faced yet again as John Maraganore has been named a strate­gic ad­vi­sor at Sim­ba Gill’s Evelo Bio­sciences, along­side ex-MyoKar­dia CEO Tas­sos Gi­anakakos. A cou­ple weeks ago, we told you that the for­mer Al­ny­lam chief is on the verge of be­ing elect­ed to the board at Take­da, and Maraganore al­so racked up an­oth­er ad­vi­so­ry role at Treg biotech Aba­ta Ther­a­peu­tics.

Kel­ly Gold

→ Last sum­mer, Kel­ly Gold was pro­mot­ed to CBO and SVP of fi­nance at Camp4 Ther­a­peu­tics, the re­gR­NA biotech from Rick Young’s lab at the White­head In­sti­tute that net­ted a $45 mil­lion Se­ries A last sum­mer. This week, she proves that maybe all that glit­ters is gold, as she has been pro­mot­ed yet again, this time to CFO and SVP of fi­nance. Gold joined Camp4 in 2017 af­ter three years at Bio­gen.

→ In Michael Pari­ni’s first year as CEO of Free­line, the Lon­don biotech has notched a win in its ear­ly-stage Fab­ry dis­ease tri­al, while Pamela Foulds has suc­ceed­ed Julie Krop as CMO and Hen­ning Sten­nicke has as­sumed the role of chief sci­en­tist. This week Paul Schnei­der en­ters the fray as CFO af­ter a stint as SVP, fi­nance and op­er­a­tions with Exo Ther­a­peu­tics. Schnei­der, a for­mer fi­nance ex­ec at Aege­ri­on Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, was SVP, fi­nance dur­ing his three years at Case­bia Ther­a­peu­tics.

Venkat Yepuri

→ Chaired by ex-Gos­samer Bio CEO Sheila Gu­jrathi and mo­tor­ing along with a $111 mil­lion Se­ries B haul in Jan­u­ary, Cal­i­for­nia CAR-T play­er Imm­PACT Bio has ap­point­ed Venkat Yepuri as COO. Yepuri spent two decades at Am­gen, start­ing out as a glob­al strate­gic sourc­ing di­rec­tor in 2001 and ris­ing to VP, glob­al busi­ness so­lu­tions and chief pro­cure­ment of­fi­cer at the phar­ma gi­ant from 2017-21.

Math­ias Oelke

→ Math­ias Oelke has earned a pro­mo­tion to CSO at Nex­Im­mune, where Kristi Jones suc­ceed­ed Scott Carmer as CEO in late Feb­ru­ary. Oelke, a sci­en­tif­ic co-founder, was pre­vi­ous­ly SVP, pre­clin­i­cal im­munother­a­py and head of cell bi­ol­o­gy since 2017. Nex­Im­mune’s two lead as­sets— NEXI-001 for re­lapsed AML and NEXI-002 for mul­ti­ple myelo­ma — have ad­vanced to Phase I/II tri­als.

Venkat Ra­manan

→ Turn­stone Bi­o­log­ics, the Take­da vi­ral im­munother­a­py part­ner whose $80 mil­lion Se­ries D last sum­mer dwarfed its pre­vi­ous three rounds, is swing­ing the door open for Venkat Ra­manan as CFO and Joseph Camp­isi as gen­er­al coun­sel. Ra­manan held a hand­ful of fi­nance po­si­tions at Gilead and then piv­ot­ed to his lat­est stop at Seagen, where he would be pro­mot­ed to SVP of fi­nance. Camp­isi, the deputy gen­er­al coun­sel for a por­tion of his 16 years at Bris­tol My­ers, was re­cent­ly EVP, gen­er­al coun­sel and sec­re­tary with Scor­pi­on Ther­a­peu­tics.

Ras­mus Holm-Jor­gensen

→ Ras­mus Holm-Jor­gensen leads a huge cast that has ven­tured off to Acrivon Ther­a­peu­tics, Pe­ter Blume-Jensen’s bid to re­vive the old Eli Lil­ly drug prex­as­ert­ib (now known as ACR-368). Holm-Jor­gensen, Acrivon’s new CFO, spent 11 years at No­vo Nordisk and helped build Kiniksa from the ground up in 2015 as chief strat­e­gy and port­fo­lio of­fi­cer. Join­ing Holm-Jor­gensen are the fol­low­ing ex­ecs: Bruce Close (VP of qual­i­ty and com­pli­ance); James Dun­yak (VP of bio­sta­tis­tics); Joon Jung (VP and head of da­ta sci­ence); Crys­tal Mer­ca­do (glob­al head of HR); Thomas Ni­fong (head of clin­i­cal CDx op­er­a­tions); Sam Rua (VP of CDx reg­u­la­to­ry); and John van Duzer (VP of CMC).

Ehab El-Gabry

→ Roche vet Ehab El-Gabry has signed on as CMO of As­traZeneca spa­tial bi­ol­o­gy part­ner Akoya Bio­sciences, which has made sev­er­al ap­point­ments in the past year, in­clud­ing for­mer Park­er In­sti­tute for Can­cer Im­munother­a­py COO Fred­er­ic Pla. Be­fore tak­ing on this role, El-Gabry had been se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor for Per­son­al­ized Health Care So­lu­tions (PCHS) at Roche Tis­sue Di­ag­nos­tics.

Sarah Math­ieson

→ Fo­cused on he­pati­tis delta virus but boast­ing pos­i­tive re­sults with pegin­ter­fer­on lamb­da for Covid-19 last month, Eiger Bio­Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals has scaled more lead­er­ship peaks to find chief tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer Chris Kurtz and SVP of cor­po­rate af­fairs Sarah Math­ieson. Kurtz left Gilead, where he was head of com­mer­cial API man­u­fac­tur­ing, to be­come EVP of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions at Cidara Ther­a­peu­tics in late 2020. Mean­while, Math­ieson — a 10-year GSK alum who was the Big Phar­ma’s glob­al head of R&D com­mu­ni­ca­tions and glob­al head of com­mu­ni­ca­tions and en­gage­ment for GSK Con­sumer Health­care — was re­cent­ly the EVP, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions, pa­tient ad­vo­ca­cy and en­gage­ment with Adamas Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

→ Aaron Os­borne has been ap­point­ed CMO and chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer at Nanoscope Ther­a­peu­tics, a Dal­las biotech de­vel­op­ing gene ther­a­pies for reti­nal dis­eases, join­ing Anil Lal­wani (VP of CMC and qual­i­ty) and Jared Stephens (VP of strat­e­gy and BD) as the newest ex­ecs. At Ad­verum, Os­borne most re­cent­ly served as CMO, and he has al­so held po­si­tions at Genen­tech, Al­con, No­var­tis and Bay­er.

Vir­ginia Casadas

→ Got­ta have Faeth: Thomas Strack is on board as CMO of Faeth Ther­a­peu­tics, while Vir­ginia Casadas joins the San Fran­cis­co-based squad as head of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions. Strack had led clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Mol­e­c­u­lar Tem­plates, and Casadas — a Pfiz­er and No­var­tis vet — is the ex-di­rec­tor, clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions at Vir Biotech­nol­o­gy. The sci­en­tif­ic co-founders at the AI-dri­ven can­cer me­tab­o­lism com­pa­ny in­clude Lewis Cant­ley, Sid Mukher­jee and Can­cer Re­search UK’s Karen Vous­den.

→ Tread­well Ther­a­peu­tics has brought on JD Mow­ery as COO. Mow­ery makes his way to the com­pa­ny with plen­ty of ex­pe­ri­ence un­der his belt from his times at Genen­tech, Lon­za, Juno/Cel­gene and AGC Bi­o­log­ics. Dur­ing his most re­cent stint at AGC, Mow­ery served as EVP, US op­er­a­tions.

→ Austin-based Maxwell Bio­sciences has ush­ered in Ed­ward Rud­nic as COO. Rud­nic was the founder, chair­man and CEO of Mid­dle­Brook Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and has pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ence in stints at Shire, Vivre­on Bio­sciences, QRx Phar­ma, Union­Bridge Man­age­ment, Mer­ck and Bris­tol My­ers.

→ Just af­ter pulling in Dan Devine as CBO and gen­er­al coun­sel last week, Aussie biotech Vaxxas is now wel­com­ing aboard Scott Fry as COO. Fry hails from El­lume where he served as chief op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer and was re­spon­si­ble for the de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of rapid tests for de­tect­ing dengue, in­fluen­za A, in­fluen­za B, group A strep­to­coc­cus, res­pi­ra­to­ry syn­cy­tial virus and Covid-19.

Lu­cas Vi­tale

→ A month re­moved from Sid­dhartha Ka­dia’s ap­point­ment as CEO, dig­i­tal cell bi­ol­o­gy play­er Berke­ley Lights has re­cruit­ed Lu­cas Vi­tale as chief hu­man re­sources of­fi­cer. Vi­tale just had a short stay as SVP of hu­man re­sources at Are­na Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, part of what Pfiz­er hopes is a con­tin­ued M&A blitz that re­cent­ly in­clud­ed the $525 mil­lion buy­out of Re­Vi­ral. He al­so climbed up the ranks to fin­ish his sev­en years at Nu­Va­sive as chief hu­man re­sources of­fi­cer.

→ An­oth­er Are­na vet has cho­sen a dif­fer­ent path: Patrick Mal­loy is now SVP, in­vestor re­la­tions and strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions for Lu­ca Santarel­li at Vec­tivBio. Af­ter 16 years at Acte­lion, Mal­loy joined Are­na as se­nior di­rec­tor, glob­al mar­ket de­vel­op­ment for its PAH drug ra­linepag, earn­ing a pro­mo­tion to VP, in­vestor re­la­tions and strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Sami­ra Shaikhly

→ Third Rock-backed re­gen­er­a­tive play Am­bys Med­i­cines is bring­ing in a new duo to its lead­er­ship team with the ap­point­ments of Sami­ra Shaikhly as chief hu­man re­sources of­fi­cer and John McK­eon as VP of fi­nance. Shaikhly spent 15 years over at Gilead — cul­mi­nat­ing in her most re­cent role as glob­al head of hu­man re­sources, cor­po­rate func­tion — be­fore mak­ing her way to Am­bys. Mean­while, McK­eon hops aboard af­ter serv­ing as se­nior di­rec­tor of fi­nan­cial plan­ning and analy­sis at Al­lakos and has oth­er stints at Jaguar Health, Bio­Marin, Avinger and Genen­tech un­der his belt.

→ ProMIS Neu­ro­sciences has reeled in Lar­ry Alt­stiel as CMO. Alt­stiel tacks on this role to his cur­rent re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as part time CMO at Pin­teon Ther­a­peu­tics. Ear­li­er in his ca­reer, Alt­stiel served as VP and head of neu­ro­science clin­i­cal re­search at Pfiz­er.

→ Boul­der, CO-based Enve­da Bio­sciences has made room on its ex­ec team for Robert Buck­ley as chief peo­ple of­fi­cer. Buck­ley most re­cent­ly served as chief peo­ple of­fi­cer at Rain­Fo­cus and has pri­or ex­pe­ri­ence at Mi­no­va In­ter­na­tion­al, eBay, Gen­er­al Elec­tric and Thumb­tack.

Christo­pher Verni

→ Vig­il Neu­ro­science — which closed a $98 mil­lion IPO back in Jan­u­ary to fu­el its two ex-Am­gen TREM2 ag­o­nists — has wel­comed aboard Christo­pher Verni as gen­er­al coun­sel and Mary This­tle to its board of di­rec­tors. Verni most re­cent­ly served as SVP, gen­er­al coun­sel and chief in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty of­fi­cer at Sarep­ta Ther­a­peu­tics. Pri­or to that, Verni had gigs at ARI­AD Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, Gen­zyme and Pfiz­er.

Mean­while, this isn’t This­tle’s first board ap­point­ment as she sits on a num­ber of boards in­clud­ing Alaunos Ther­a­peu­tics, Ho­mol­o­gy Med­i­cines, En­tra­da Ther­a­peu­tics, En­terome and Co­coon Bio. This­tle cur­rent­ly serves as spe­cial ad­vi­sor at the Bill & Melin­da Gates Med­ical Re­search In­sti­tute and be­fore that, served as COO of Di­men­sion Ther­a­peu­tics. This­tle al­so has held roles at Ul­tragenyx, Cu­bist Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, PerkinElmer and Vi­a­cell.

Gabrielle Poiri­er

→ Com­pu­ta­tion­al chem­istry out­fit Nim­bus Ther­a­peu­tics has wel­comed two new ex­ecs while pro­mot­ing an­oth­er: VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment Bhaskar Sri­vas­ta­va, a vet­er­an of J&J’s Janssen, has been el­e­vat­ed to SVP. Gabrielle Poiri­er (VP, clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions) just held the same post at an­tibi­otics biotech En­ta­sis, and the for­mer clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions VP at Pro­teosta­sis Ther­a­peu­tics was al­so an as­so­ciate di­rec­tor at Iron­wood and Alex­ion. Zak Huang (VP, reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs) spent 11 years be­fore mov­ing on to CSL Behring to be­come head of glob­al prod­uct reg­u­la­to­ry strat­e­gy and lat­er the head of Chi­na R&D.

François Bi­nette

→ Enochi­an Bio­Sciences has ap­point­ed François Bi­nette as EVP for R&D. Bi­nette, who once worked in re­gen­er­a­tive med­i­cine at J&J, most re­cent­ly served as SVP of prod­uct de­vel­op­ment at Lin­eage Cell Ther­a­peu­tics. Ear­li­er this month, the Los An­ge­les-based de­vel­op­er of cell ther­a­pies for HIV and can­cer brought on long­time Pfiz­er vet Greg Duczyn­s­ki as SVP for clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions.

Ka­te­ri­na Left­heris

→ In its first Peer Re­view ap­pear­ance since COO Niru­pa­ma Sub­ra­man­ian joined the team, Third Rock-backed Rheos Med­i­cines has lined up Ka­te­ri­na Left­heris as SVP of drug dis­cov­ery and Nabil Ud­din as VP of strat­e­gy and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Left­heris, a Bris­tol My­ers alum, com­pletes a near­ly five-year run as VP of chem­istry at Pli­ant Ther­a­peu­tics, while Ud­din has ex­it­ed the stage at Con­cert Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals af­ter his time as VP of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment.

Ur­vashi Pa­tel

→ Gam­ma delta T cell out­fit IN8bio has two ap­point­ments that we didn’t get to dur­ing the short week last week: Ur­vashi Pa­tel has tak­en over as VP, reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs, and Stacey Bilin­s­ki is the new VP, clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions. Pa­tel, who comes to IN8bio from her role as VP of reg­u­la­to­ry and qual­i­ty sys­tems at Wind­MIL Ther­a­peu­tics, al­so held po­si­tions at Janssen, Elan Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Genen­tech. Bilin­s­ki most re­cent­ly served as glob­al se­nior di­rec­tor, op­er­a­tions at Tai­ho On­col­o­gy.

Su­san Flint

→ Alzheimer’s biotech Alzheon out of Fram­ing­ham, MA has di­aled up three new staffers: Su­san Flint (VP of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions) al­so led clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions at Swedish biotech Wil­son Ther­a­peu­tics, which Alex­ion pur­chased for $855 mil­lion sev­er­al years ago; Patrick Kess­lak (VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment & med­ical af­fairs) is an Am­gen and Al­ler­gan vet who was re­cent­ly the se­nior di­rec­tor, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for Re­vance Ther­a­peu­tics; and Er­wan de Nau­rois (VP of fi­nance) has left the role of se­nior di­rec­tor, fi­nan­cial plan­ning & analy­sis at Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing.

→ Boston-based Aileron Ther­a­peu­tics, whose lead pro­gram AL­RN-6924 fo­cus­es on p53-mu­tat­ed can­cers, has en­list­ed Christo­pher Zergebel as VP, pro­gram man­age­ment and clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions. So ends a long as­so­ci­a­tion with Tai­ho On­col­o­gy, where Zergebel was re­cent­ly VP, R&D ser­vices and VP, project man­age­ment.

Ashok Marín

→ With its lead bis­pe­cif­ic an­ti­body can­di­date ISB 1342 in Phase I for re­lapsed/re­frac­to­ry mul­ti­ple myelo­ma, Glen­mark spin­out Ich­nos Sci­ences has se­lect­ed Ashok Marín as gen­er­al coun­sel. Marín held the role of chief le­gal of­fi­cer for four short months at Rafael Hold­ings af­ter a year-long stay at Gilead as as­so­ciate gen­er­al coun­sel. He’s al­so been Mallinck­rodt’s VP, com­pli­ance & chief pri­va­cy of­fi­cer.

→ Dirk Sauer, who re­tired last year af­ter 31 years at No­var­tis, has been added to the board of di­rec­tors at Bal­ti­more-based Gray­bug Vi­sion, suc­ceed­ing Ger­ard Ca­gle. From 2011-21, Sauer was in charge of No­var­tis’ oph­thal­mol­o­gy de­vel­op­ment unit.

John Scar­lett

→ Geron pres­i­dent and CEO John Scar­lett will re­tire from the board of di­rec­tors at South San Fran­cis­co can­cer biotech Cy­tomX when stock­hold­ers meet on June 15. Scar­lett had served on the board since June 2016.

→ US-Aus­tri­an im­munother­a­py biotech Hookipa Phar­ma has elect­ed Tim Reil­ly to the board of di­rec­tors. Af­ter an 18-year run at Bris­tol My­ers end­ed in 2021, Reil­ly made the leap to HotSpot Ther­a­peu­tics as their chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer.

→ Roque­fort Ther­a­peu­tics is ush­er­ing in Si­mon Sin­clair as non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor to its board. Sin­clair has held a num­ber of roles at J&J and Mer­ck. Cur­rent­ly, Sin­clair serves as chief safe­ty of­fi­cer at Reckitt Benckiser Group.