Chutes & Ladders: Big Pharma vet Sandy Macrae to helm Sangamo

Chutes and Ladders

Welcome to this week's Chutes and Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please send the good word--or the bad--from your shop to Eric Sagonowsky (email) or Amirah Al Idrus (email | Twitter), and we will feature it here at the end of each week.

Big Pharma vet Sandy Macrae to helm Sangamo

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Sangamo
Sandy Macrae was named CEO.

With this week’s news that CEO Edward Lanphier is retiring at Sangamo ($SGMO), the company has lined up Big Pharma veteran Dr. Alexander "Sandy" Macrae to take the top spot. Macrae, 53, heads to the Californian biotech with experience from various positions at GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) and at Takeda, where he was global medical officer from 2012 to 2016. With a market cap of about $500 million, Sangamo focuses on gene editing tech and is currently working in HIV/AIDS and hemophilia A and B. He’ll seek to chart the course for biotech after Shire ($SHPG) ended a 3-year gene editing pact with Sangamo last fall. As a result of the split, Shire handed back to Sangamo rights to early-stage, ZFP-powered treatments for hemophilia A and B but kept some Sangamo-discovered leads in Huntington's disease and another undisclosed target. Sangamo also has a $320 million Biogen alliance in hemoglobinopathies. FierceBiotech


Michel Lagarde joins Patheon as president

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Patheon
Michel Lagarde was named president.

CDMO Patheon has selected Michel Lagarde for the newly created role of president, in which he’ll be responsible for global corporate and cross-enterprise operations, reporting to CEO James Mullen. Lagarde, who stepped down from Patheon’s board with the move, most recently worked as a managing director with private equity firm JLL Partners and its portfolio companies in healthcare and pharma services. He makes the move following close efforts with Patheon management to “transform the company into a global leader,” according to a company release; over 5 years, it has more than doubled revenues and EBITDA. Release


Nektar Therapeutics names a COO and CFO

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Nektar Therapeutics
John Nicholson was named COO.

In two executive promotions, San Francisco’s Nektar Therapeutics ($NKTR) has named John Nicholson its COO and Gil Labrucherie its CFO. Nicholson, who will lead global business and corporate development, among other responsibilities, had previously been serving as CFO since 2007. Before joining Nektar, he worked in varying leadership roles at Bayer Schering Pharma AG. Labrucherie, who had served as general counsel at Nektar since 2007, will manage the company’s finance and accounting, IT and services, logistics, while continuing to provide legal oversight. Before joining Nektar, Labrucherie had been VP of corporate development at E2open and senior director of corporate development at AltaVista. Release


Mylan is cutting jobs at a patch plant. Story


Biotech

Juniper Pharma ($JNP) President and CEO Frank Condella Jr. will retire later this year. Release

Sterigenics appointed Michael Petras Jr. as CEO, effective June 20. Release

miRagen named Adam Levy as chief business officer and Christopher Morl as chief operating officer. Release

Arsanis appointed Dr. Chris Stevens as chief medical officer. Release

ERS Genomics appointed Eric Rhodes as chief executive officer. Release

Sutro Biopharma named Shabbir Anik as chief technical operations officer. Release

ProNAi Therapeutics ($DNAI) named Christian Hassig as senior vice president of research. Release

> Tim Smith joined Cleave Biosciences as chief business officer. Release

Neos Therapeutics ($NEOS) appointed Juergen Martens as chief technology and operations officer. Release

H3 Biomedicine appointed Dr. Tarek Sahmoud as chief medical officer. Release

CRO

> Bruce Stouffer joined PPD ($PPDI) as executive director of immunochemistry. Release

> INC Research ($INCR) has announced the retirement of Chairman James Ogle, a CRO veteran and former CEO of the company. Release

> inVentiv Health has elected David Southwell to its board of directors, effective immediately. Southwell currently holds board memberships with PTC Therapeutics, Inotek Pharmaceuticals and THL Credit. Release

Pharma Manufacturing

CDMO Almac Group named Kevin Reid as vice president of corporate marketing. Release

Med tech

Zynex hired Rick Luckenbill as vice president of finance. Release

> Keystone Heart announced that Chris Richardson will be its new president and CEO. Release

Diagnostics

Illumina ($ILMN) appointed Paula Dowdy as senior vice president and general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Release

> Khush Mehta joined CardioDx as CEO. Release

> Dr. F. Michael Walsh joined Aurora Diagnostics as its chief medical officer. Release