Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of significant leadership hirings, firings and retirings across the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Darren Incorvaia, Marissa Russo or Donavyn Coffey, and it will be featured here at the end of each week.
Plenge out in BMS R&D shake-up
Bristol Myers Squibb
Bristol Myers Squibb is merging its research and development divisions under the leadership of Cristian Massacesi, M.D., BMS’ current chief medical officer and head of development.
Starting Jan. 1, Massacesi will lead a newly combined research and development unit as head of R&D. Meanwhile, the pharma's chief research officer, Robert Plenge, M.D., Ph.D., is leaving the company, although he will continue in an advisory capacity through March.
“Increasingly, traditional boundaries between research and development are collapsing,” BMS CEO Christopher Boerner, Ph.D., explained in a statement. “This combined R&D organization sets us up to attract and retain the best talent, build critical capabilities and better integrate new technology.” Story
Summit cut commercial leader ahead of high-stakes FDA decision
Summit Therapeutics
Summit Therapeutics cut ties with chief commercial officer Robert LaCaze and several employees on its commercial launch team in the months leading up to its nearing FDA decision date for Akeso-partnered PD-1xVEGF bispecific ivonescimab.
LaCaze was hired as the company’s CCO in March 2025 and departed from Summit in August, the company ultimately confirmed to Fierce. Other “long-term players” directly responsible for commercial launch plans have also been let go, an anonymous source said.
Summit initially denied any layoffs but eventually told Fierce that “less than five employees have been separated from the commercial organization in recent months,” which it described as part of the ordinary course of business. The workplace shake-up comes at a time when Summit would be making launch preparations ahead of its Nov. 14 PDUFA date for ivonescimab, its potential first-in-class bispecific.
The FDA will rule on ivonescimab as a treatment for previously treated, EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer. The anonymous source close to the company also told Fierce that Summit’s senior leadership had proposed the company skip its internal launch meeting, which is typically used to prepare staff for market readiness.
With an approval verdict slated to arrive by Saturday, whether inovescimab passes muster with the FDA remains highly uncertain. Story
OncoNano plucks former FDA commissioner as new head
OncoNano Medicine
OncoNano Medicine, a Texas-based biotech developing targeted cancer therapies using proprietary polymer technologies, appointed Brett Giroir, M.D., as its new CEO. Giroir has served as a member of OncoNano’s board since 2021, and he recently stepped into the interim CEO role in October before the company made it official.
Back in 2019, Giroir did a short 3-month stint as the acting FDA commissioner, followed by multiple years serving in many areas of the U.S. government, including being a part of the White House COVID task force for nearly a year.
OncoNano is advancing a pipeline of targeted cancer therapies through its proprietary ON-BOARD and OMNI platforms. The company's lead clinical-stage program, ONM-501, is a dual-activating STING agonist currently being evaluated in a phase 1 clinical trial in patients with advanced solid tumors and lymphomas. Release
> Generative AI biopharma Absci has appointed Gerry Muhle as its new chief commercial officer. Mule hails from Galderma and will help build the brand around Absci’s investigational hair loss treatment ABS-201. Release
> Radiopharmaceutical drug development biotech Juniper Biosciences strengthened its C-suite with the additions of Deepak Behera, M.D., as chief medical officer, Robert Sgroi as chief commercial officer and Javed Mahmood, Ph.D., as senior director of clinical development. The company made the hiring push as it prepares for commercialization of its lead asset, JBS-003, currently in phase 3 trials. Release
> Elisabeth Svanberg, M.D., Ph.D., joined Swiss biotech TECregan as its new chief medical officer to help usher the company’s lead candidate TEC001 toward an IND. Release
> enGene Therapeutics appointed Erik Goluboff, M.D., as its new chief medical officer as its lead non-viral gene therapy candidate, detalimogene voraplasmid (detalimogene), is being evaluated in phase 2 studies for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. Release
> Pfizer alum Arati Rao, M.D. will lead Nurix Therapeutics' development and registrational programs for leukemia and lymphoma treatment candidate, bexobrutideg, as the company’s new chief medical officer. Release
> London-based Dalton Therapeutics tapped Merck KGaA and Schrödinger alum Melissa Landon, Ph.D., as its new chief commercial officer to help expand its agentic reasoning platform and build relationships with pharma, biotech and CRO partners. Release