Bill Haney→ Bill Haney has helped Skyhawk Therapeutics stand out in the wave of biotechs looking to drug RNA, taking over from fellow co-founder Kathleen McCarthy early in its history and engineering numerous collaborations with big names like Genentech, Merck, Sanofi and most recently, Ipsen. This week Haney stepped down as CEO and handed the reins to Clint Musil, who ended a two-year run as Skyhawk’s CFO in February. Before he joined Skyhawk in December 2021, Musil held the CFO post at Catalyst Biosciences and was CBO for Personalis, and he led corporate development for ARMO BioSciences, an I/O player that Eli Lilly purchased in 2018. Haney, who’s enjoyed another career as a documentary filmmaker, will concentrate on his role as executive chairman at Skyhawk and is still the CEO of Dragonfly Therapeutics.
Ken Mills→ A similar transition is happening at Regenxbio, where founding CEO Ken Mills will pass the baton to COO Curran Simpson on July 1 and Mills will be executive chairman. Regenxbio hired Simpson in 2015 as SVP of technical operations from GSK, where he was regional supply chain head for North America. He was elevated to COO last year.
Regenxbio has multiple irons in the fire as Mills steps into a different role after 15 years as chief executive. It’s partnering with AbbVie on a wet AMD gene therapy that generated positive Phase 2 data in January; it has a gene therapy for Hunter syndrome in the pipeline with accelerated approval aspirations; and it revealed early biomarker data in March for its Duchenne gene therapy.
→ Jens Vogel is the latest domino to fall in Bayer’s massive reorg. His role as global head of the German conglomerate’s biotech organization has been phased out, and in a lengthy LinkedIn post, Vogel wrote that his four years with Bayer “have been amongst the most exciting and fulfilling times in my career.” Bayer announced in May that it would slash 1,500 jobs, two-thirds of which are in management positions. Included in CEO Bill Anderson’s quadrilateral of “badly broken areas” that he intends to fix is “a hierarchical bureaucracy that blocks progress.”
Aoife Brennan→ Aoife Brennan has started a new chapter as CEO of Eliem Therapeutics, an SEC filing states. Brennan also picked up a board seat this week at Xilio Therapeutics with former GSK medical chief James Shannon.
In May 2018, Brennan moved up to CEO of Synlogic following the resignation of Jose-Carlos Gutiérrez-Ramos. It became increasingly clear that its phenylketonuria drug labafenogene marselecobac wouldn’t pass muster in the clinic, causing Synlogic to scrap the Synpheny-3 trial and close up shop in February. “It is with a heavy heart that we share this news, and our resulting decision to end Synpheny-3,” Brennan said in a statement at the time. “I want to express my deepest thanks and appreciation to every person who has been part of Synlogic, and in so doing contributed to the science we have advanced and special company we have built.”
Eliem brought itself back from the brink in April by acquiring Tenet Medicines and pulling together a $120 million private placement.
Derek Wallace→ A spokesperson for Takeda tells Peer Review that Derek Wallace was elevated to president of the vaccine business unit on June 1. His predecessor, Gary Dubin, jumped over to Takeda from GSK’s vaccines team in 2015 and will retire in January 2025. Wallace was pivotal to Qdenga’s path to approval as VP and global dengue program head.
→ After wrapping up a decade as CEO of Heron Pharmaceuticals in May 2023, Barry Quart has resurfaced as CEO of Connect Biopharma, an inflammatory disease specialist that’s going after atopic dermatitis and asthma with its lead asset rademikibart. And he’s bringing a former colleague with him: Ex-Heron COO and Regulus Therapeutics vet David Szekeres has been named president of Connect. Zheng Wei, the CEO since he co-founded Connect in 2012, will keep his seat on a board that’s now chaired by Shoreline Biosciences chief Kleanthis Xanthopoulos.
Rupert Vessey→ Flagship’s Generate:Biomedicines, one of the companies that’s looking to bring generative AI into drug R&D, has welcomed Rupert Vessey and Nancy Simonian to the board of directors. Vessey is already part of the Flagship universe as chief scientist and executive partner, taking the job on July 31 last year after overseeing research and early development for Bristol Myers Squibb. Simonian retired as CEO of Syros Pharmaceuticals on Dec. 1 and has been a member of Bayer’s supervisory board since April. Generate is going up against two new heavy hitters in this particular field: Demis Hassabis’ Isomorphic Labs and Xaira Therapeutics, the $1 billion startup led by ex-Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne.
Jason Brown→ QurAlis has now tapped Jason Brown as CFO and Doug Williamson as CMO after Lilly shelled out $45 million upfront for the antisense oligonucleotide QRL-204 from the ALS biotech earlier this month. Brown is a Novartis and PureTech vet who was elevated to CFO at Karuna Therapeutics a couple months before Bristol Myers made its $14 billion move for the neuro company. Williamson has additional experience in this space as head of Lundbeck’s US R&D organization and global deputy CMO, and the 17-year Lilly vet has also spent a year as R&D chief at Acadia Pharmaceuticals. QurAlis has also added Noetik CBO and former Recursion business chief Shafique Virani to the board of directors.
Nathan Jorgensen→ Vor Bio CFO Nathan Jorgensen will resign on June 21 to take the same position with Al Sandrock at Voyager Therapeutics on July 8. According to an SEC filing, Jorgensen’s duties at Vor will be temporarily split between CEO Robert Ang (principal financial officer) and VP of finance Amy Quinlan (principal accounting officer). Jorgensen became Vor’s CFO in May 2020 and guided Siddhartha Mukherjee’s cell therapy maker to a $203.4 million IPO nine months later.
John Crowley→ Centessa Pharmaceuticals, the once-flashy biotech from Medicxi that pivoted to a hemophilia B program after its kidney drug lixivaptan flamed out, has named John Crowley as CFO and shifted Gregory Weinhoff to the new CBO slot. Crowley (not to be confused with the CEO of BIO) spent the last five years as finance chief of Fusion Pharmaceuticals, the radiopharma biotech that AstraZeneca snapped up this year, and he’s also the ex-CFO at Merus. Weinhoff had been Centessa’s finance leader since March 2021 after earlier CFO gigs at Axovant and the company he co-founded, Arvelle Therapeutics.
Harald Reinhart→ Harald Reinhart will retire at the end of this month as head of Zai Lab’s global development for neuroscience, autoimmune and infectious diseases. Rafael Amado, the ex-Allogene R&D chief who came to Zai Lab in January 2023, will absorb his responsibilities and be in charge of all global R&D. Reinhardt is a Novartis and Shionogi clinical development vet who took on the role of CMO for the autoimmune and infectious diseases portfolio at Zai Lab in 2017. He was elevated to his current position in December 2021.
Manher Joshi→ Neurona Therapeutics, the epilepsy cell therapy biotech that secured a $120 million financing round in February, has recruited Manher Joshi as medical chief. Joshi, who goes by “AJ,” held the dual roles of CMO and clinical development head in seven and a half years with Atara Biotherapeutics.
→ I&I drug developer Triveni Bio has appointed Bhaskar Srivastava as CMO. The J&J alum was bumped up to SVP of clinical development during his recent three-year stint at Nimbus Therapeutics. Atlas Venture, Cormorant Asset Management, OrbiMed and others contributed to last October’s $92 million Series A that will help push Triveni’s atopic dermatitis candidate TRIV-509 into the clinic “in the first half of 2025.”
Hayley Parker→ Oligonucleotide therapy developer PepGen has promoted Michelle Mellion to CMO and Hayley Parker to SVP, global regulatory affairs. Mellion had led clinical development for PepGen since April 2022 after nearly four years with Fulcrum Therapeutics, and Parker is a fellow Biogen and Vertex vet who left Scholar Rock last year to become VP of regulatory affairs.
→ Adverum Biotechnologies has selected board member Rabia Gurses Ozden as medical chief overseeing the later-stage development of its ocular gene therapies. Ozden will give her board seat to Szilárd Kiss. Ozden served in this role at Ocular Therapeutix and Nightstar Therapeutics, and her résumé also consists of roles at Akouos (chief development officer), Applied Genetic Technologies and GSK.
Ron Cooper→ Ex-Albireo Pharma chief Ron Cooper has succeeded Bruce Downey as chairman of the board at C4 Therapeutics, while Glenn Dubin will exit “as part of C4T’s continued Board evolution with this appointment.” Cooper’s tenure at Bristol Myers spanned 30 years before running Albireo, which was sold to Ipsen for $952 million last year.
→ Sanofi-backed T-Therapeutics has picked up Nuvation CEO David Hung as its chairman of the board. Earlier in his career, Hung founded Medivation — which was eventually sold to Pfizer for $14.3 billion in 2016 — and was CEO of ProDuct Health.
Jane Pritchett Henderson→ Cargo Therapeutics, the last biotech to go public in 2023, has elected Apogee Therapeutics CFO Jane Pritchett Henderson to the board of directors. Cargo’s $281 million IPO last year was only surpassed by Apogee, Acelyrin and RayzeBio.
→ Jnana Therapeutics CMO and R&D chief George Vratsanos has joined the board of directors at Nkarta. Vratsanos worked at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine as SVP of translational science and medicine, immunology, when it was known as Janssen. He has further R&D experience with larger pharmas at Bristol Myers, Roche and Novartis.
Ken Herrmann→ Lilly’s radiopharma partner Aktis Oncology has made room for Ken Herrmann on the board of directors. Herrmann chairs the scientific advisory board at Aktis as well as the nuclear medicine department at the Universitätsklinikum Essen in Germany.
→ Syndax Pharmaceuticals CEO Michael Metzger has punched his ticket to the board of directors at Pyxis Oncology. It’s the second board appointment for Pyxis this year after the addition of Santhosh Palani in March.
→ Alongside its $100 million Series E this week, Alzheon has reserved a seat on its board of directors for Gino Santini. He retired from Eli Lilly in 2012, having capped his career there as SVP of corporate strategy and business development. Santini also has board seats at Intercept Pharmaceuticals and Collegium Pharmaceuticals.