BioSpace Movers & Shakers: Enveda, Evaxion, Elevation

Biopharma and life sciences companies continue to strengthen their executive teams and boards with this week’s Movers & Shakers.

Enveda Biosciences: John Wetterau, Kendra Hightower and Don Hertzog were all appointed to the leadership team of Enveda Biosciences. Wetterau was named vice president of translational sciences. He held roles of increasing responsibility at Eli Lilly and Co., Pfizer Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Cerenis Therapeutics. Hightower was named vice president of lead generation biology. She was previously vice president of lead discovery at Ribometrix Inc. Herzog and was named senior research fellow, pipeline. He spent 17 years at GlaxoSmithKline, where he held various leadership roles.

Evaxion Biotech A/S: Bo Karmark was named chief financial officer, and Jesper Nyegaard Nissen was named chief operating officer at Denmark-based Evaxion. Before joining Evaxion, Karmark served as CFO for Aquaporin A/S, a water technology company. Prior to that, Karmark held numerous financial management positions at various companies, including Chr Hansen Holding A/S, H. Lundbeck A/S, and NsGene A/S. Nissen joins Evaxion from Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, where he has been on the program management team for large-scale capital projects since January 2021. He began his career at Novo Nordisk A/S in corporate finance before moving into senior leadership roles in 2010 as vice president and later corporate vice president for Global Research Operations.

SELLAS Life Sciences Group: Robert Francomano was named chief commercial officer. He most recently served as CCO at Stemline Therapeutics. Prior to Stemline, Francomano held several key roles within the oncology divisions at Baxalta, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca.

Crinetics Pharmaceuticals: Biogen veteran Caren Deardorf was appointed to the board of directors. Deardorf has spent 20 years at Biogen, where she led commercial efforts for neurological diseases, including rare congenital disorders. She is currently CCO at Magenta Therapeutics. She also held the same role at Ohana Biosciences.

Elevation Oncology: David Dornan was named chief scientific officer. Dornan joins Elevation Oncology from Bolt Biotherapeutics, where he served as CSO. Before this, Dornan was the head of oncology research at Gilead Sciences. He began his career at Genentech, where he spent 10 years serving in positions of increasing responsibility.

Applied Molecular Transport: Carolyn Finkle was named head of regulatory affairs. Most recently, Finkle served as COO and head of regulatory affairs at Medicago. Prior to her role at Medicago, she was the vice president of regulatory affairs at Karyopharm, head of U.S. commercialization and global client partnerships at Kinapse, and senior vice president of regulatory and pharmacovigilance at inVentiv Health. Finkle also previously held leadership roles in regulatory affairs and product development for Catalent, MedImmune, PAREXEL and Celsion.

Kamada Ltd.: Jon R. Knight was named vice president of U.S. commercial operations. Kamada also appointed Jonathan Ward as director of facilities and construction. Most recently, Knight was responsible for trade relations at TherapeuticsMD. He also held leadership positions at Prometic Life Sciences, CIS by Deloitte, Cardinal Health, Cangene bioPharma, and Nabi bioPharmaceuticals. Ward recently managed facility operations and maintenance for 54 plasma collection centers at Bio Products Laboratory.

Curie Therapeutics: Georgette Verdin was named chief people officer. She was most recently as chief human resources officer at AVROBIO and as a global executive leader of People & Organization at Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Research. She has also held HR management roles at Biogen Idec., Microsoft and Amazon.

CAMP4 Therapeutics: Biogen veteran Alfred Sandrock will join the scientific advisory board and Ann Barbier was named CMO. Prior to joining CAMP4, Barbier was CMO of Translate Bio. Her prior experience includes positions at Agios Pharmaceuticals, Shire, EnVivo Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson and Aventis. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Pieris Pharmaceuticals. Sandrock spent 23 years at Biogen, holding positions of increasing responsibility, culminating in his service as head of research & development. He also held a seat on the Biogen Executive Committee as CMO.

VERAXA Biotech: Lars Hufnagel was named chief technical officer. Hufnagel joins VERAXA from Bruker Corporation, where he served as CTO for the company’s fluorescence microscopy business and General Manager and Vice President of the Luxendo business unit.

Quantum Genomics: Stéphane Cohen joins Quantum Genomics as director of Global Operations. Cohen has held operational management and senior leadership positions involving a dozen successful market launches of new treatments in major pharmaceutical companies, particularly at Bayer and Pfizer, for 18 years.

Adaptive Research: Christine Wong was named consultant director of external affairs, and Claude Nguyen was named director of clinical informatics. Wong was attending physician of Vascular Neurology and Neurocritical Care at Sutter Health California Pacific Medical Center for nine years and served as co-chair of Neurosciences Quality Improvement Committee for seven years. Nguyen served as Telestroke Director at Baylor Scott White Health. Before that, he was at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology.

ASLAN Pharmaceuticals: Alex Kaoukhov was named CMO. He was most recently head of Clinical Development at Bioniz Therapeutics. From 2018 to 2020, he served as head of Global Development at Almirall. Kaoukhov was also head of Clinical Development at Allergan and served in clinical development leadership roles at Novartis and Galderma.

Surface Oncology: Theresa Boni was named general counsel and senior vice president of legal. Before joining Surface, Boni served as vice president, assistant general counsel at Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, vice president, associate general counsel at Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals and held senior legal positions with Boston Scientific and Thermo Electron.

Epygenix Therapeutics: Darren Cline was named president and chief executive officer. Cline succeeds Hahn-Jun Lee. Cline was most recently the U.S. CCO at GW Pharmaceuticals. Before that, he was executive vice president of commercial at Seagen. Cline also held commercial leadership roles at Intermune, Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Amgen. He is currently a member of the Pyxis Oncology Board of Directors and was formerly on the Stemline Therapeutics Board of Directors.

Garuda Therapeutics: James Desiderio was named chief regulatory officer. He previously served as SVP of regulatory affairs and quality at Acceleron Pharma.

Metagenomi: Christine Foster was named chief business officer, and Alan Cohen was named CMO and head of monogenic diseases. Foster joins Metagenomi from Intellia Therapeutics, where she served as SVP of business development. Cohen joins Metagenomi from Eidos Therapeutics, a BridgeBio company, where he served as vice president of Global Medical Affairs.

Coherus BioSciences: Rosh Dias was named CMO. Dias joins Coherus from Spruce Biosciences, Inc., where he was the CMO. Prior to Spruce, he served as CMO at Indivior PLC. From 2014 to 2018, Dias held senior leadership positions at Amgen, Inc., most recently as Vice President, Global Scientific Affairs, and at Amgen’s subsidiary, Onxy Pharmaceuticals, Inc., as Head of Global Medical and Scientific Affairs.

Neolukin Therapeutics: Donna Cochener was named general counsel. Cochener joins Neoleukin after serving as deputy general counsel at HomeStreet, Inc., the parent company of HomeStreet Bank.

Grey Wolf Therapeutics: Cassian Yee was appointed to the clinical advisory board. Yee is a professor in the department of melanoma medical oncology and the department of immunology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as well as director of the solid tumor cell therapy program at MD Anderson. Yee previously held the position of professor in the oncology division at the University of Washington and was also a member of a program in immunology within the clinical research division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Sight Sciences: Brenda Becker was appointed to the board of directors, joining the nominating and governance committee. She currently serves as SVP of Global Government Affairs at Boston Scientific. Prior to joining Boston Scientific in 2007, Becker served in the George W. Bush administration as assistant to the Vice President for Legislative Affairs.

binx health: Todd Bennett was named CCO. He previously held multiple executive leadership roles at several high-growth companies, including Luminex, Immucor, Roche and Abbott.

SummerBio LLC: Julie Gerberding, incoming CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been appointed to the board of directors. Gerberding currently serves as a chief patient officer and previously as president of Merck Vaccines.

Oyster Point Pharma: William J. Link is retiring from the Oyster Point Board of Directors. Link will continue to serve as a consultant to the company. Link joined Oyster Point’s Board of Directors at the company's inception in July 2015 and was a member of the compensation committee.