Companies closed out the year with a number of appointments and hires to strengthen their leadership teams, including changes at the FDA, Melinta, CLSA, Virion, and more.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) -- Amy Abernathy, the chief medical officer of Roche-owned Flatiron Health, has been named the Principal Deputy Commissioner of Food and Drugs at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Abernathy will replace Rachel Sherman, who is retiring at the end of January after serving 30 years at the federal agency. Prior to her stint with Flatiron, Abernathy was a professor of medicine at Duke University.
Ionis Pharmaceuticals -- Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. founder and CEO Stanley T. Crooke will step aside from his role as CEO and transition to a role as executive chairman of the board of directors. Crooke will continue to be responsible for the activities of the board and will remain active in the company, providing strategic advice and continuing to participate in the scientific activities of the company. Chief Operating Officer Brett P. Monia will assume the reins of the company in the new year. Monia is a founding member of Ionis He has been an executive officer of the company since the beginning of 2012 and the COO since the beginning of 2018.
resTORbio, Inc. – Boston-based resTorbio named William Marshall its vice president of medical sciences. Marshall will oversee the company’s Phase III pulmonary program and a Phase II Parkinson’s disease program. Marshall most recently served as head of global medical sciences at Alexion. Prior to that, he served in leadership roles at Translational Therapeutics, Merck and Genzyme.
Melinta Therapeutics – New Haven, Conn.-based Melinta said John H. Johnson has agreed to become the permanent chief executive officer of the company. Johnson is a director of Melinta and has served as interim CEO of the Company since Oct. 22, 2018. Johnson has held leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly & Company, ImClone and Pfizer, Inc. In addition to Melinta, Johnson currently serves on the boards of Aveo Oncology, Histogenics Corporation, Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and is chairman of Strongbridge Biopharma plc.
InnovHeart – Novel transcatheter mitral valve replacement system developer InnovHeart named Jason Bottiglieri as CEO. Former CEO and founder, Giovanni Righini, will continue to serve the company as Chief Technology Officer and as a member of the board of directors. Before joining InnovHeart, Bottiglieri was CEO of Infraredx, a start-up company developing a novel intravascular imaging system for the detection of lipid core plaque in coronary artery disease. Bottiglieri also held roles at Spectranetics Corp. and Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson company.
California Life Sciences Association – Mike Guerra was named president and CEO of CLSA, the trade association representing California’s life sciences sector. Guerra will Sara Radcliffe, who will depart the organization to pursue new opportunities. Guerra assumes his new role on Jan. 7, 2019. Guerra joins CLSA from VWR International, where he served as vice president of sales for the Western Region of the United States. Radcliffe departs CLSA after the organization formed four years ago from the merger of merger of BayBio and the California Healthcare Institute (CHI).
Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals, Inc. – Hopkinton, Mass.-based Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals named Scott Smith as chairman of the board. Smith will assume his new role on Jan. 1. He will replace Martin Driscoll, the current chairman and CEO. Driscoll will continue to serve as president and company CEO.
OSE Immunotherapeutics -- Julien Perrier was named chief commercial officer at OSE Immunotherapeutics. He will be the founding member of the Company’s new Boston-based, U.S. global development team specialized in immunotherapy. Perrier most recently served as head of immunology for AbbVie’s France division, where he oversaw the commercial operations for Humira. From 2013 to 2017, Perrier was head of operations and portfolio management at the biological products division of Sanofi in partnership with Regeneron, specializing in immunology.
BIOPHYTIS – Paris-based BIOPHYTIS promoted Jean-Christophe Montigny to the position of chief commercial officer and Daniel Schneiderman as chief financial officer. Schneiderman will be based in the U.S. Since 2009, Montigny has been supervising the finance and legal functions of BIOPHYTIS in France. As the new COO, Montigny will continue to oversee his previous functions while ensuring cross-functional management. Previously, Schneiderman served as vice president of finance and controller of MetaStat, Inc., a Boston-based precision medicine company.
Virion Biotherapeutics – Edwin Moses, the former CEO of Ablynx, was named chairman of the board of directors at London-based Virion Biotherapeutics. Moses held the role of Ablynx CEO until this year, when the company was acquired by Sanofi. Additionally, Virion tapped Guido Dietrich as head of manufacturing. He succeeds Jeffrey Almond. Dietrich joins Virion from Merck, Sharpe & Dohme, where he was most recently vice president of quality biologics and steriles. Previously, he held senior management roles in manufacturing and quality of biopharmaceuticals, vaccines and steriles at Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and Lonza.
Zymergen -- Jens Peter Clausen was named senior vice president of global manufacturing for Emeryville, Calif.-based Zymergen. He will focus on building process engineering and operations teams focused on the acceleration of product development. Prior to joining Zymergen, Clausen served as vice president of Gigafactory at Tesla, overseeing operations. This leadership expansion follows Zymergen’s Series C funding of over $400 million announced in December.
Tessa Therapeutics – George W. Sledge, chief of medical oncology at Stanford University Medical Center, joined the board of directors of Singapore-based Tessa Therapeutics. He will assume his role on Jan. 2. Sledge serves as co-chair of the Susan G. Komen Foundation Scientific Advisory Board and is a past President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
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