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.
Kite's former EU chief Nowers joins NK cell startup ONK as CEO
ONK Therapeutics
Chris Nowers will come on board as CEO.
Nowers made his name in cell therapy circles during a two-year stint heading up the European operation of Kite Pharma as it prepared to bring its pioneering CAR-T treatment to market. Having taken Kite to the cusp of approval in Europe, Nowers left to take up the CEO role at Cell Medica, only to leave around 18 months later as the startup rebranded and moved its headquarters to Houston. Now, Nowers, who worked at Bristol Myers Squibb before joining Kite, has landed the CEO role at another European cell therapy startup. ONK has spent the past five years building on the natural killer cell and apoptosis work Michael O'Dwyer and his collaborators carried out at the National University of Ireland Galway. Fierce Biotech
As DeFord retires as CTO, BD plays musical chairs with R&D, life science leaders
Becton, Dickinson and Company
Kaltenbach will replace John DeFord and leaves behind the role of executive VP and president of the life sciences segment, which will now go to newly promoted Dave Hickey. DeFord will continue on in an advisory role for the company from next year. As CTO, Kaltenbach will oversee the company's recently launched Innovation and Growth Fund to advance BD's strategy and increase investments in priority R&D programs that boost growth. He joined BD back in 2018, coming from a stint running Agilent's largest R&D group, a spinout of Hewlett-Packard, a company he started out with. Fierce Biotech
COVID-19 vaccine biotech Vaccitech nabs Pfizer, Kite vet as full-time CMO
Vaccitech
Margaret (Meg) Marshall, M.D., has joined as chief medical officer.
Marshall joined as a consultant to Oxford spinout Vaccitech in the summer, but she now jumps on board full time. This comes two months after it nabbed U.K. government funding for a COVID-19 vaccine it thinks can improve on first-generation prospects, including the AstraZeneca vaccine it helped develop. Outside of pandemic vaccines, the biotech is also working on T-cell vaccines and immunotherapies designed to treat and prevent infectious disease and cancer. Fierce Biotech
> Dania Rabah, Ph.D., has become the new chief scientific officer at startup Rheos Medicines, coming off a stint as the head of the drug discovery incubator, research and early development at Biogen. This comes exactly one year after Barbara Fox, Ph.D., took over from interim CEO Abbie Celniker, Ph.D., a partner at Third Rock Ventures, which launched Rheos with $60 million in March 2018. Fierce Biotech
> After stints at Eli Lilly, Boehringer Ingelheim and Bristol Myers Squibb, Sid Kerkar, M.D., is hopping over to a small biotech, where he will oversee immuno-oncology R&D. He joins Exuma Biotech as the CAR-T player presents preclinical data for a treatment targeting HER2-expressing tumors at a tumor immunology and immunotherapy-focused meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. Fierce Biotech
> Freshly funded French biotech SparingVision has appointed Stéphane Boissel as CEO. Prior to SparingVision, Boissel was executive VP of corporate strategy at Sangamo Therapeutics. Release
> Danish biotech Snipr Biome ApS has named Milan Zdravkovic, M.D., Ph.D., as chief medical officer. Zdravkovic was most recently chief medical officer and head of R&D at Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB.
> Shasqi has appointed Wayne Saville, M.D., as chief medical officer. Saville was most recently VP of oncology clinical development at Xencor.
> TriSalus Life Sciences has tapped Trevor McCaw as chief commercial officer. McCaw was most recently president and chief commercial officer at Clerio Vision. Release
> Nautilus Biotechnology has named Nick Nelson as chief business officer. Nelson was most recently chief business officer at Caris Life Sciences and previously was VP of commercial and corporate development at Trovagene.
> Redwood City, California-based Meissa Vaccines has appointed William (Bill) Daly, J.D., as chief business officer and Keith H. Wells, Ph.D., as chief manufacturing officer. Release
> Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Nimbus Therapeutics has tapped Erin Cowhig as chief people officer. Prior to Nimbus, Cowhig was VP of human resources at Vertex. Release