Dermavant hires Todd Zavodnick as CEO 

Dermavant has named Todd Zavodnick as its CEO. The dermatology-focused Roivant subsidiary hired Zavodnick to fill a leadership space vacated by Jackie Fouse in September.

Fouse arrived at Dermavant as executive chair in July 2017. By the time the ex-Celgene executive left to lead Agios in September 2018, Dermavant had bought in three drugs to bolster its pipeline and filled key positions in its C-suite. 

Responsibility for taking the drugs and Dermavant itself forward will fall on Zavodnick, who is joining the company from Revance Therapeutics, where he has served as chief commercial officer and president of aesthetics and therapeutics since July 2017. Revance is developing a potential rival to Allergan’s Botox.

Revance is one of several companies on Zavodnick’s résumé that are active in dermatology. Prior to joining Revance, Zavodnick served as president of Zeltiq in the run-up to its acquisition by Allergan and spent several years rising through the ranks at Galderma.

Zavodnick will now bring this experience to a company that is targeting several big indications in the dermatology sector. Dermavant’s lead candidate is tapinarof, a therapeutic aryl hydrocarbon receptor modulating agent the company picked up from GlaxoSmithKline in a $330 million deal while Fouse was in charge.  

Dermavant plans to build on the early-phase work performed by GSK by advancing tapinarof deeper into the clinic in psoriasis and atopic dermatitis. The Roivant unit is also planning to test its topical SYK/JAK inhibitor cerdulatinib in patients with atopic dermatitis or vitiligo.

Further back in the pipeline, Dermavant has lotamilast (E6005), a PDE4 inhibitor Roivant licensed from Eisai in 2015. The drug has been tested in multiple phase 1 and 2 trials and was listed as Dermavant’s lead candidate earlier in the year. However, lotamilast is now back in the preclinical section of Dermavant’s pipeline.