Pharma and life sciences companies from across the globe provide updates on their pipelines and business.
Menlo Therapeutics – Andrew Saik was named chief financial officer and treasurer of New Jersey-based Menlo Therapeutics. Saik will be responsible for leading the company’s global finance operations, including, financial planning and analysis, investor relations, accounting, tax, treasury, supply chain and information technology. Saik was most recently CFO at PDS Biotechnology, Inc. and before that, he was CFO at Vertice Pharma, LLC. Previously, he was CFO at Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and also held roles at Endo Health Solutions, Inc. Ilan Hadar, Menlo’s current CFO, will remain through a transition period in establishing U.S. financial operations.
KBP Bio – New Jersey-based KBP Biosciences named Nick Hart as CFO. Hart joins KBP with more than 30 years of financial and operational leadership experience within the healthcare sector. Most recently, he was CFO at Temptime Corporation, a private equity-owned manufacturer of temperature monitoring devices. He was also CFO and acting president at HemCon Medical Technologies. Hart also held roles at Alltracel Pharmaceuticals, Porton Capital Ltd and BioScience Managers Ltd.
Emmes – Kathleen Wolf joined Maryland-based Emmes as vice president of clinical operations. She has two decades of leadership experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including most recently as a senior director with AstraZeneca’s MedImmune unit. In addition to AstraZeneca, Wolf held leadership roles at Shire and Human Genome Sciences.
Immuneering – Immuneering Corporation announced the addition of three leading oncology experts to the company’s Scientific Advisory Board. The new members are Daniel H. Ahn, Mitesh J. Borad, and Bijan Nejadnik. Ahn is an assistant professor at the Mayo Clinic and director of the GI Oncology Translational Research Working Group. He is a member of the Academic and Community Cancer Research United Board of Directors. Borad is the director of the Cancer Cell, Gene, and Virus Therapy lab at the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine. Borad is the co-chair of the Mayo Clinic Hepatobiliary Cancers CME-accredited International Review Symposium. Nejadnik is chief medical officer and head of research at SanBio, Inc. Nejadnik has more than two decades of experience in large pharma and small biotech companies. He held multiple key roles at Johnson & Johnson working on numerous compounds in early and late-stage registrational trials in Alzheimer disease, immunology, autoimmune disorders, hematology and oncology.
CytomX – Carlos Campoy was named president and CFO of South San Francisco-based CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. Most recently, Campoy served as CFO of Alder BioPharmaceuticals, which was acquired in October 2019 by Lundbeck A/S. Prior to Alder, Campoy held the role of vice president of finance, international at Allergan plc. Before that, he spent 18 years at Eli Lilly holding various positions, including CFO of Eli Lilly Japan K.K.
Recursion – Utah-based Recursion named Robert Hershberg to its board of directors. Hershberg was the chief scientific officer and head of Business Development and Global Alliances at Celgene. Prior to Celgene, he served in several roles at VentiRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., including chief executive officer. Hershberg currently serves as a clinical faculty member at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Also this week, Recursion named Shafique (Shaf) Virani as its chief corporate development officer. Dr. Virani will serve as both Recursion’s chief business officer and CEO of its newly formed Development Corporation, which will take a subset of Recursion’s assets into clinical-stage partnerships with biopharma companies. Michael Secora was named CFO. Before joining Recursion, Secora was managing director and head of Capital Markets and Venture at Laurion Capital, an asset manager based in New York.
Immuoron – Australia’s Immuron, the maker of gut-health product Travelan, underwent a restructuring due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a major first step in this process, Immuron’s CEO Gary S. Jacob has offered his resignation as CEO and member of the board. Jacob will be replaced as CEO by Jerry Kanellos.
Biovica – Robert Dann joined Sweden’s Biovica as head of marketing and its U.S. business operations. Dann previously led life sciences and oncology marketing at IBM Watson Health. He also served in roles leading strategic marketing and oncology marketing at GE Healthcare. Earlier in his career, among other roles, Robert led the global launch of the estrogen blocker Faslodex for AstraZeneca and was country general manager in Russia and in Finland.
Butterfly Network – Laurent Faracci was named CEO of Butterfly Network, a company developing its Ultrasound-On-Chip technology. Faracci joins Butterfly after more than 20 years with Reckitt Benckiser where he was instrumental in scaling the company’s global consumer health business.
