Nima FarzanNima Farzan has joined pain company Latigo Biotherapeutics after leaving Kinnate Biopharma, which was sold to XOMA Corporation in April.
Latigo emerged earlier this year with $135 million from Westlake Village BioPartners and others to develop new, non-opioid pain treatments. It currently has a candidate in early-stage studies, as well as other preclinical compounds lined up behind it.
It’s an interesting time for pain drug development — the first novel, non-opioid pain treatment in many years is heading toward a potential FDA approval. Vertex Pharmaceuticals said in April it’s working on a rolling submission for suzetrigine in acute pain.
Latigo’s ultimate goal is to develop a better compound than Vertex’s. Farzan said that Latigo plans to have “meaningful data” and “some hopeful indication of efficacy” from human studies next year.
Pain drug development “is a nice melding of the two components of the backgrounds I have,” Farzan said, referring to his past CEO roles at Kinnate, a cancer company, and vaccine developer PaxVax.
“Vaccines were the healthy volunteers, very large studies. And then oncology was the extreme opposite — very small studies, very sick patients, last line drugs. And pain sits in between,” Farzan said.
“The opioid crisis is — I live in San Francisco — it’s a major issue for our society. And there are a lot of different ways that we can make an impact,” Farzan said. “One of the answers has to be, I believe, innovation in the biopharmaceutical space to develop non-opioid pain medicines, and I think that’s an important leg in how we solve this crisis.”
— Lei Lei Wu
Malte Peters→ You knew it wouldn’t be long before Malte Peters was back in the C-suite. The Novartis Oncology alum got called up from the boardroom at Hookipa Pharma earlier this year to serve as a senior clinical advisor until chief development officer Mark Winderlich took over in April. This week, Hookipa decided to part ways with CEO Jörn Aldag and CFO Reinhard Kandera, naming Peters as CEO and fellow board member Terry Coelho as CFO. Peters left Sandoz in 2017 to become development chief of MorphoSys, which Novartis is buying for $2.9 billion. He would later be chief R&D officer for MorphoSys from 2020-22. Coelho is a Novartis vet in her own right who has been CFO/chief business development officer at CinCor Pharma and CFO for Gamida Cell in the last few years.
A Phase 2/3 trial is on tap for Hookipa’s lead program, HB-200, for first-line HPV16+ recurrent/metastatic oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma in combination with Keytruda.
“The board of directors determined that Dr. Peters and Ms. Coelho are the right leaders to help the company execute through this next stage of development and realize the significant opportunity HB-200 represents, with the aim of ensuring that the Company’s attractive business prospects result in value for shareholders,” Hookipa chairman and Genmab CEO Jan van de Winkel said in a statement.
Hookipa has also welcomed ex-Arvinas CFO Sean Cassidy to the board.
Ron Cooper→ Ron Cooper is back as a CEO with enGene, succeeding Jason Hanson at one of the few recent SPAC successes. Cooper’s career at Bristol Myers Squibb spanned three decades before he was named CEO at Albireo Pharma in 2015. Albireo’s unsuccessful NASH efforts are a familiar tale in the space, but it would score an FDA approval in 2021 with Bylvay for pruritus in patients with a rare liver disease called progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis. Ipsen would buy Albireo at the beginning of 2023 for a shade under $1 billion, and Bylvay earned a label expansion several months later.
In other news, Raj Pruthi has been promoted to CMO at enGene, which is studying EG-70 in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). The J&J vet had been SVP of clinical development and urologic oncology since April and takes over from Richard Bryce, the former Rain Therapeutics CMO who had only been in the position since last September.
Bob Langer→ Bob Langer, the mRNA trailblazer who co-founded Moderna, has retired from the company’s board of directors. The Carlyle Group’s co-founder and co-chairman David Rubenstein — the new principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles — has replaced Flagship Pioneering managing partner Stephen Berenson on the board. “My decision to leave Moderna’s board was not taken lightly, but I believe the company is in an extremely strong position for continued success,” Langer told Endpoints News, adding, “It was the right time for me to step down, but I’m certainly not going away.”
→ MEI Pharma announced on Monday that it’s weighing its strategic options, scrapping development of its CDK9 inhibitor voruciclib. CEO David Urso, medical chief Richard Ghalie and chairman Charles Baltic are all out the door, with the company planning a “reduction-in-force beginning as soon as practicable.” CFO Justin File will be acting CEO when Urso leaves on Aug. 1, and ex-Novavax finance chief Fred Driscoll has been named chairman. MEI and Infinity Pharmaceuticals tried to merge last year, but the deal fell apart when a majority of shareholders disapproved. MEI had rejected an unsolicited offer from activist investors while the M&A wheels were still in motion.
Thomas Trimarchi→ BridgeBio has elevated Thomas Trimarchi to president and COO. Trimarchi came to BridgeBio from Regeneron in 2018 and had been chief product officer before his promotion. “Tom thinks independently, puts patients first, understands that every minute counts for the patients we serve, and lets science and data dictate his decision-making,” CEO Neil Kumar said in a release. “He has been a tremendous part of building BridgeBio into what it is today.” BridgeBio is counting down to a Nov. 29 decision date for its transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM) candidate acoramidis, which would compete with Pfizer’s Vyndaqel and Vyndamax if it gets the FDA’s blessing.
Lance Baldo→ Three weeks removed from disclosing its $170 million Series B, eye disease gene therapy biotech Beacon Therapeutics has tapped Lance Baldo as CEO and Thomas Biancardi as CFO. Baldo will replace Dave Fellows on Aug. 12 after he held the role of CMO at Freenome and Adaptive Biotechnologies. In a three-year run at Genentech (after working at Roche from 2010-16), Baldo was franchise head for ophthalmology and head of US medical affairs. Biancardi is a Pfizer finance vet who has been a consulting CFO for biopharma clients at Danforth Advisors. His first day at Beacon will be Aug. 1.
Leone Patterson→ Leone Patterson has resigned as chief financial and business officer of Tenaya Therapeutics to take the same role at Zymeworks on Sept. 1. Patterson was hired at Tenaya in March 2021, and the South San Francisco biotech hit the Nasdaq with an upsized IPO the following August. She’s also part of our inaugural list of LGBTQ+ leaders who have made an impact in biopharma.
Alicia Tozier→ Unity Biotechnology, which is pitting its diabetic macular edema candidate UBX1325 head-to-head with Regeneron blockbuster Eylea in a Phase 2b study, has selected Alicia Tozier as chief strategy officer. She leaves her SVP post at Outlook Therapeutics, an eye disease biotech that encountered some regulatory barricades when the FDA rejected its ophthalmic formulation of bevacizumab last summer. (CHMP would say yes in March.) From 2019-21, Tozier was Genentech’s head of ophthalmology with US oversight for market access, marketing, specialty sales and operations.
Christof Marré→ There’s quite a bit of activity at Vedanta Biosciences, starting with the appointment of Christof Marré as head of commercial. Marré is a nine-year EMD Serono vet who spent the last year and a half as VP of marketing & pipeline planning at Alpine Immune Sciences, which was recently acquired by Vertex. Additionally, Vedanta anounced it has promoted Jack Kyte to SVP, human resources and hired Allergan vet Steven Shiff. Shiff joined Vedanta as SVP, clinical research last September after leading clinical development for Intercept Pharmaceuticals.
Anil Kapur→ Anil Kapur will step down as EVP, corporate strategy and chief commercial officer of Geron on Aug. 31, and COO Andrew Grethlein will temporarily handle all commercial responsibilities. Kapur had been with the company since 2019 and helped with the launch of imetelstat, marketed as Rytelo for a group of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes who also have transfusion-dependent anemia. “We are encouraged by the uptake of Rytelo we are seeing in the first month of launch and by the positive feedback from customers and are confident that our seasoned commercial leadership team will continue to drive this momentum going forward,” Geron CEO John Scarlett said in a statement.
Molly Sawaya→ Pablo Legorreta’s Royalty Pharma, which picked up the rights to vorasidenib from Agios in May, has named Molly Sawaya as EVP, head of human capital. Sawaya joined the team from Hudson Bay Capital, where she was managing director and head of colleague experience. Her résumé also includes stints at QBE Insurance Group, Perpetual Limited and National Australia Bank.
Sanjay Verghese→ A spokesperson for Amarin tells Peer Review that Sanjay Verghese has been named general manager for the UK and Ireland. Verghese was UK VP for rare disease and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) consumer health at Novo Nordisk and stayed at the Danish pharma for 24 years until his departure in September 2023.
→ Former Refuge Biotechnologies CEO Bing Wang checked in with Peer Review to announce that he’s taken the CFO job at Akeso, Summit Therapeutics’ partner on ivonescimab. Wang resigned from Cellectis in May and Arthur Stril has been pitch-hitting as interim finance chief at the French CAR-T cell therapy developer ever since.
Phil Tennant→ Maryland-based gene and cell therapy biotech Precigen has enlisted Phil Tennant as chief commercial officer. This concludes Tennant’s five-year tenure at Astellas, where he was promoted to head of the oncology business unit. Other large pharmas show up on the résumé: Tennant held several positions at Bristol Myers from 2011-18, including head of hematology marketing, US oncology. Earlier, he had stints at Merck and AstraZeneca.
Steve Becker→ Elsewhere, Broken String Biosciences has picked up Steve Becker as chief commercial officer. Becker joins the Cambridge-based team from Thermo Fisher Scientific, where he was senior director, molecular diagnostics licensing and commercial supply. Before that, he had gigs at Quest Diagnostics, Athena Diagnostics, RainDance Technologies, Agilent Technologies and GE Healthcare.
→ Thymmune Therapeutics, a startup that got a $37 million boost from ARPA-H for its thymus-rejuvenating therapies, has found a new chief technology officer. Manish Jain just held this title at Avenge Bio, and has been a drug product and process development leader for Amgen, ImmunoGen and Momenta.
Beth Krewson→ PharmaEssentia USA has brought in Beth Krewson as head of legal. Krewson has experience from her role as general counsel at Formation Bio. Before that, she was SVP, general counsel & compliance officer at BlueRock Therapeutics, Innocoll Biotherapeutics and Churchill Pharmaceuticals.
→ Janux Therapeutics has elected Eric Dobmeier and Natasha Hernday to the board of directors, while Ron Barrett will succeed Avalon Ventures’ Jay Lichter as chairman. Both new members have M&A track records: Dobmeier’s kidney disease biotech Chinook Therapeutics was sold to Novartis for $3.5 billion and Hernday spent more than a decade at Seagen, where she was elevated to CBO.
Simona Skerjanec→ Roche vet Simona Skerjanec has picked up a board seat at Immunic, the inflammatory and autoimmune disease biotech that appointed former Ovid Therapeutics exec Jason Tardio as president and COO earlier this month. Skerjanec popped up on Peer Review’s radar in May by sewing up a spot on the board at Avidity Biosciences.
→ Blueprint Medicines CSO Percy Carter has joined the board of directors at Flagship’s Cellarity. Chaired by Stephen Berenson, Cellarity is working with Novo Nordisk on an oral small molecule for NASH.