Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Kyle Blankenship, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Roche's major cancer research exec Rommel jumps ship to Bayer as Moeller exits
Bayer
Christian Rommel, Ph.D., comes on board as head of research.
Rommel comes to Bayer from Roche, where he served as the Swiss major’s senior vice president and head of oncology research and early development for nearly seven years. He’s also served stints at Amgen, Intellikine, Merck Serono and Regeneron. Now, he lands at Bayer fresh off a new focus on gene therapies and poised from Feb. 1 next year to take over from former R&D chief Joerg Moeller, M.D., who will formally exit at year-end. Moeller has “decided to leave Bayer … to pursue other career opportunities,” according to the company, so don’t be surprised if he turns up at another biopharma soon. Fierce Biotech
Cogent Biosciences names Array veteran Robbins to CEO post
Cogent Biosciences
Andrew Robbins has been named CEO.
Robbins served at Array Biopharma as chief operating officer, where he was responsible for the commercialization of two novel precision oncology products before Array’s acquisition by Pfizer in 2019. Prior to joining Array, Robbins held management positions at both Hospira, a global pharmaceutical and medical device company, and Pfizer, as part of its oncology business unit. He currently serves on the board of directors for Harpoon Therapeutics and Turmeric Acquisition Corporation. Release
Nuvation Bio brings on Fox as newest chief financial officer
Nuvation Bio
Jennifer Fox will take over the CFO role.
Fox will be a member of the executive leadership team and will be responsible for corporate strategy, business development, investor relations and corporate communications. She joins Nuvation from CitiGroup, where she most recently served as a managing director and co-head of the healthcare corporate and investment banking group. Prior to CitiGroup, Fox held senior positions in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, Bear Stearns, Bank of America and Prudential Securities. Release
> London-based Adaptate Biotherapeutics has named Stewart Kay as chief business officer. Kay was most recently CBO at Crescendo Biologics and prior to that served as senior director of transactions at GlaxoSmithKline.
> French biotech SparingVision has appointed Florence Lorget, Ph.D., as chief development sciences officer and Rajiv Gangurde, Ph.D., as chief technology officer. Release
> Farmingdale, New York-based Codagenix will bring on Jeffrey Fu, Ph.D., as chief business officer. Fu spent nearly 30 years at Merck & Co., where he led the company's North America pharmaceutical and global vaccine commercial business development activities. Release
> Boston-based GentiBio has tapped Catherine Thut as chief business officer and Thomas Wickham as chief scientific officer. Release
> Boston-based Monte Rosa Therapeutics has fleshed out it executive team with the appointments of Min Wang, Ph.D., as chief operating officer; Ajim Tamboli as chief financial officer; and Jullian G. Jones, Ph.D., as senior VP and head of business development. Release