BioSpace Movers & Shakers, Nov. 20
Spark Therapeutics – Michael Retterath joined Roche subsidiary Spark as chief strategy officer. Retterath joins Spark from Bain & Company, where he served as a partner in the healthcare practice for a decade. He focused on corporate and business unit strategies, organizational transformations, product launches, growth strategies and new market entries. Prior to joining Bain in 2010, Retterath was a partner at Monitor Group and head of the New York office. Before that, he was senior vice president at Sanofi Diagnostics Pasteur in Paris and a senior director at Boehringer Mannheim.
Monte Rosa – Boston-based Monte Rosa Therapeutics announced the formation of its scientific advisory board. Members of the board include Nicolas Thomä, group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland; Michael Rape, professor of cell and developmental biology at University of California, Berkeley and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Ian Colling, co-founder of Monte Rosa and professor of medicinal chemistry at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and head of chemistry in its Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit; Eliezer Van Allen, associate professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School and associate member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Kimberly Blackwell, chief medical officer at Tempus Labs; and David Schenkein, general partner at GV.
Q State – Steven Hyman and Mathew Might joined the Q State Biosciences Board of Directors as independent directors. Hyman currently serves as director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and is the Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. Might is director of the Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute and Professor of both Internal Medicine and Computer Science at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Current board member Mark Evenstad was appointed chair following the retirement from of outgoing Chairman David Margulies. Evenstad served as chief executive officer of Upsher-Smith Laboratories.
ZIOPHARM – Mary Thistle, special adviser for the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute, was appointed to the board of directors of Ziopharm Oncology. At the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute, she previously held the role of chief of staff before being appointed special adviser. Prior to joining the institute, Thistle was chief operating officer of Dimension Therapeutics. Previously, she was head of Business Development at Cubist Pharmaceuticals. She has also held leadership positions at ViaCell and PerkinElmer. The company also announced today that Scott Braunstein resigned from the board.
Additionally, Raffaele Baffa was named chief medical officer of Ziopharm. Baffa joins the company from Medisix, where he held the role of Head of R&D and CMO. Previously, Baffa was Therapeutic Area Head of Oncology, Global Clinical Development for Shire. Baffa has also held industry leadership positions as executive director of Early Oncology Development and Clinical Research at Pfizer and at Sanofi, where he was Head of Translational Sciences - External Science & Innovation, Global Biotherapeutics.
HotSpot Therapeutics – Eva Jack was named COO of Boston-based HotSpot. Jack joins from Mersana Therapeutics where she was chief business officer. Before Mersana, Jack owned and operated Macava Consulting, a firm offering business strategy and financial consulting services to biotech companies. She previously served as the chief business officer at Pulmatrix and before that she held various roles at MedImmune.
Imperative Care – Matthew Garret was named chief financial officer of California-based Imperative Care. Garrett succeeds John Buckley who retired after serving as the CFO of Imperative Care since its inception. Garrett previously served as CFO of iRhythm Technologies Inc., where he led the company’s operations during a period of rapid growth. He also served as CFO with Navigenics, Inc. Garrett has successfully assembled and led finance and operations teams across a range of medical technology and pharmaceutical companies, including Corventis, Inc., Cogentus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Affymetrix, Inc., and Guidant Corp.
Day Zero – Dekel Gelbman was named senior vice president of Business and Development Strategy for Day Zero Diagnostics, Inc. Gelbman most recently served as the founding CEO of FDNA, a digital health startup that develops advanced AI tools to help diagnose patients with rare diseases. Prior to FDNA, Gelbman served as a corporate and transactional attorney in Israel as well as the United States. The company also announced the addition of Robin Patel to its clinical and scientific advisory board. Patel currently serves as the director of Infectious Diseases Research Laboratory at the Mayo Clinic, as well as co-director of the clinical Bacteriology Laboratory. Additionally, the company appointed Sally Hojvat, as a regulatory strategy advisor. Hojvat served as the director of the Division of Microbiology Devices at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the Food and Drug Administration for 12 years.
NeuBase Therapeutics – Eriks Rozners and Randy Davis were named to the scientific advisory board of NeuBase Therapeutics. Rozners, an expert in nucleic acid biochemistry, and Davis is a biotechnology industry veteran. Rozners is a professor and the chairman of the Department of Chemistry at Binghamton University, where his lab focuses on the use of organic chemistry to develop unique model systems and tools for the studies and practical applications of nucleic acid biochemistry. Davis was one of the founding members of Genia Technologies, a company developing a next-generation sequencing platform, which was acquired by Roche in 2014.
Hillstream – Richard M. Stone was named to the scientific advisory board of Hillstream BioPharma. Stone is chief of staff and director of Translational Research in the Leukemia Division at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Stone’s clinical practice focuses on patients with acute myeloid leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome and myeloproliferative disorders.
Ikena Oncology – Boston-based Ikena formed its scientific advisory board. George Demetri, professor of Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and co-Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard will chair the SAB. Demetri will be joined initially by Kevan Shokat, professor, Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF; and Joseph Tabernero, head of the Medical Oncology Department at the Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital.
Biocom -- Biocom California, the association representing the California life science industry, added Reza Halse, lead of Pacific BD&L Hub and president of Merck Research Laboratories Venture Fund; Michael Garrison, worldwide president of the Medication Management Solutions business unit of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company); and Jens Vogel, senior vice president and global head of product supply biotech for Bayer Pharmaceuticals, to its newly established board of governors. These new members will be replacing Steven Bartz, Rajeet Banerjee and Judy Chou, respectively. Biocom California’s board of governors was established to align and influence the organization’s activities for the mutual benefit of the life science industry, member companies and to support its statewide mission – accelerating life science success.