Biotech Movers and Shakers for July 30

Nabriva Therapeutics – Nabriva Therapeutics restructured part of its leadership team in the wake of the acquisition of Zavante Therapeutics. Colin Broom, who had served as chief executive officer of Nabriva, was replaced by Zavante CEO Ted Schroeder. Broom will maintain a seat on the board of directors and serve in an advisory role to Schroeder. Steven Gelone, Nabriva's chief scientific officer and head of business & corporate development, has been named president and chief operating officer of Nabriva.

Purdue Pharma – Rocked by the opioid scandal, Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin, has restructured some of its leadership. The Connecticut-based company named Steve Miller as its new chairman of the board. Additionally, Purdue said Marc Kesselman was named general counsel for the company.

OptiBiotix Health – Sofia Kolyda has been appointed to the board of OptiBiotix Health. Kolyda previously served as OptiBiotix’s head of research.

BioSymetrics – Artificial intelligence-focused BioSymetrics Inc. formed its strategic advisory board. The new board will work with the company’s leadership team to drive its R&D innovations and healthcare mission. The board is led by Anthony Iacovone, BioSymetric’s chairman of the board, and Chief Scientific Officer Gabriel Musso. SAB board members include:

•          Calum MacRae, vice chair for Scientific Innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
•          Chinnappa Kodira, who most recently served as head of Computational Modeling, and Bioinformatics Strategy Leader at GE Global Research.
•          Paul Boutros, a principal investigator at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and associate professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto
•          Robert DeVita, a professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in the Department of Pharmacological Sciences. He also serves as director of the Medicinal Chemistry Core of the Drug Discovery Institute (DDI) at Mt Sinai.
•          Gene Salkind, chairman of neurosurgery at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Pennsylvania.

VIUM, Inc. – San Mateo, Calif.-based Vium, Inc. strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Laura Scaevitz to chief scientific officer. She previously held the position of vice president of scientific technologies at the company. Additionally, the company also named Jeff Caron to the newly formed position of head of engineering. Ted Ira was named vice president of sales.

MorphoSys – Jennifer Herron was named president of MorphoSys U.S. and executive vice president of global commercial operations. Herron will focus on establishing the company’s commercial capabilities in the United States. The company’s operations will be based in New Jersey. Herron takes over its U.S. operations as the company looks to gain a toehold in the U.S. market with the potential regulatory approval of MOR208, a treatment for B cell malignancies. Herron most recently served as chief commercial officer for Ariad Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Takeda last year. She also held several leadership roles at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Turnstone Biologics – Ottawa, Ontario-based Turnstone Biologics tapped Jane Pritchett Henderson as its new chief financial officer. Prior to her time with Turnstone, Henderson served as CFO for Voyager Therapeutics. In addition to Henderson, Turnstone named several new members of its leadership team: Kristin Gustafson was named head of human resources; Steve Bernstein was tapped as head of clinical research and development; David Stojdi was named head of discovery research; and Adina Pelusio was named vice president of clinical operations.

Abeona Therapeutics – Abeona Therapeutics announced the appointment of Max Colao as Chief Commerical Officer. Colao most recently served as the Senior Vice President of US Commercial Operations at Alexion Pharmaceuticals and has more than 20 years of global pharmaceutical and biotechnology experience.