Biopharma and life sciences companies strengthen their leadership teams and boards with these Movers & Shakers.
Eli Lilly – Pharma giant Eli Lilly announced the planned retirement of two members of its executive committee and named their successors in the company’s manufacturing operations and ethics and compliance organizations.
Myles O’Neill, senior vice president and president of Lilly manufacturing operations, will retire May 2, 2021 after nearly 19 years of service with the company. Melissa Barnes, senior vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer, will retire June 27, 2021 after more than 26 years with the company. Edgardo Hernandez, who currently serves as senior vice president, global parental drug product and device manufacturing, will succeed O’Neill as senior vice president and president of Lilly manufacturing operations. Alonzo Weems, presently vice president and deputy general counsel, will succeed Barnes as senior vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer.
Prior to joining Lilly in 2005, Hernandez worked for Pfizer. His career at Lilly has included roles with increasing leadership responsibilities in engineering services and manufacturing strategy, as well as manufacturing site-head roles in Puerto Rico, France, and the United States. He currently oversees Lilly’s parenteral and device manufacturing network, as well as the company’s global supply chain activities. Prior to joining Lilly in 1997, Weems was an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. He has held roles of increasing responsibility at Lilly, including general counsel of Lilly Canada, general counsel for Lilly USA and general counsel for the global Bio-Medicines and Diabetes business units, which included responsibilities for legal teams in Australia, Canada, China, Europe and Japan. In his current role, Weems is responsible for the corporate legal functions which includes commercial transactions, litigation, regulatory, and human resources.
Rezolute – Vlad Hogenhuis and Nerissa C. Kreher were appointed to the board of directors of Rezolute. Hogenhuis recently served as chief operating officer at Ultragenyx in global commercial operations, business development and manufacturing of medicines for patients with rare diseases. Previously, Hogenhuis served as senior vice president and global franchise head of specialty pharmaceuticals at GlaxoSmithKline for six years. Prior to GSK, he served in leadership positions at Merck in the U.S., China and Europe for 18 years. Kreher currently serves as chief medical officer at Entrada Therapeutics. Previously, she held the role of CMO at Tiburio Therapeutics and Avrobio. Prior to these roles, Kreher held leadership positions at Zafgen, Shire, Enobia and Genzyme.
H1 – Julie Stern was named Senior Vice President of Engineering and Chief Information Security Officer at New York-based H1. Stern has spent more than three decades in leadership roles at healthcare and technology organizations. She most recently served as Chief Technology Officer at HealthReveal where she oversaw significant AI, architecture, and organizational changes to drive scale. Julie also served as CTO at leading healthcare technology companies including Accolade and Vesta Healthcare (Hometeam). She was also the co-founder and CTO of kConciergeMD.
eTheRNA – Belgium’s eTheRNA immunotherapies NV announced Volker Germaschewski has been appointed Senior Vice President for R&D. Volker joins eTheRNA from Kymab Ltd. where, over 10 years, he was initially Senior Director Discovery and subsequently Vice President of Hematology. Prior to that he held several positions in Biopharm R&D at GlaxoSmithKline.
Penrose TherapeuTx – Mitochondrial expert Navdeep Chandel joined the company’s scientific advisory board. Chandel joins Penrose as the company is positioned to begin rapidly advancing its novel Mitochondrial Modifying Agent (MMA) research program. Chandel is the David W. Cugell, Professor of Medicine Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine where he also founded the Chandel Laboratory. Chandel’s work established that mitochondrial metabolism and reactive oxygen species (ROS) are necessary for tumorigenesis in vivo which led to the current understanding that both aerobic glycolysis and mitochondrial metabolism are essential for tumor growth.
NanoString Technologies -- Dana Rollison and Janet George were appointed to the board of directors of Seattle-based NanoString Technologies. Rollison is vice president, chief data officer and associate center director of Data Science for the Moffitt Cancer Center. She has been a faculty member at Moffitt for over 16 years. Her research focuses on the application of data science techniques to cancer surveillance and epidemiologic studies of cutaneous viral infections, environmental exposures, and immune function. George is group vice president of Autonomous Enterprise, Advanced Analytics with Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence at Oracle. Before Oracle, George served as chief data and AI officer and fellow at Western Digital. She was responsible for the big data, artificial intelligence, and cognitive sciences transformational journey. Additionally, George has held leadership roles in engineering at numerous leading technology companies, including SanDisk, Accenture Technology Labs, Yahoo, eBay, and Apple.
Centessa Pharmaceuticals – Gregory Weinhoff was named CFO of startup Centessa Pharmaceuticals. Also, Mary Lynne Hedley, Robert M. Califf and Samarth Kulkarni joined the company’s board of directors. Weinhoff joins Centessa after co-founding and serving as chief financial and business officer of Arvelle Therapeutics B.V., which was acquired by Angelini Pharma in 2021 for $960 million. Previously, Weinhoff served as CFO at Axovant Sciences, Inc. Before Axovant, Weinhoff spent 15 years as an early-stage healthcare venture capitalist at CHL Medical Partners, where he was founding CEO of Amicus Therapeutics. Hedley is a senior fellow and strategic advisor at the Broad Institute and former president, co-founder and COO at TESARO, Inc. Califf currently serves as the head of strategy and clinical policy for Verily and Google Health. Kulkarni, is CEO of CRISPR Therapeutics. Prior to CRISPR, he was a partner at McKinsey & Company, where he had a leading role in the pharmaceutical and medical products practice.
AavantiBio – Ty Howton was named chief operating officer and general counsel of Cambridge, Mass.-based AavantiBio. A veteran life sciences executive, Mr. Howton brings to AavantiBio more than two decades of strategic, operational, and legal experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. In his most recent position, Howton served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Sarepta Therapeutics. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, and as a member of the executive team at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where he had general management responsibilities and oversaw all aspects of the legal and compliance departments globally, including risk management. Prior to Vertex, Howton worked at Genentech, where he served in a variety of legal roles before becoming the company’s chief healthcare compliance officer. Earlier in his career, he was a member of the Sidley Austin LLP corporate healthcare practice where he advised on corporate transactions involving life science companies and provided regulatory counsel.
Women’s Health USA -- Angela Briggs-Paige joined the company as Senior Vice President, People & Culture, and Sara Eversden joined as Regional Vice President and is currently serving as the CEO for Women’s Health Texas. Briggs-Paige joins Women’s Health USA with more than 20 years of experience in cultural transformation and in the recruitment, retention, and development of talent that delivers business results. Prior to Women’s Health USA, she provided strategic oversight and leadership of all people operations including HR technology, service delivery, operational effectiveness, business process review, continuous improvement activities, technology strategy, and staff coaching and development within the communication and healthcare industries. Everdsen brings more than 25 years of operational, financial and executive experience aligning organizations on strategic initiatives, providing governance and structure, and ensuring financial goals are successfully achieved. Prior to joining Women’s Health USA, she led the development and implementation of financial operations to support physician practice management and operational teams.
Sagimet Biosciences – Eduardo Bruno Martins was named CMO of Sagimet Biosciences. Martins has worked in various therapeutic areas, including hepatology, vaccines, allergy and immunology, orphan diseases, and oncology, from translational research to Phase 4 clinical studies. Most recently at AbbVie, Martins was vice president of clinical development and led the clinical development of cenicriviroc for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and a collaboration with Verilyon artificial intelligence and virtual staining applied to liver biopsy. Prior to AbbVie, Martins served as vice president of clinical development at Allergan. Previously, he was a member of the executive leadership team as senior vice president of liver and infectious disease drug development at Eiger Biopharmaceuticals.
