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.
Busy Read takes another post-Pfizer gig, this time as a Carlyle Group dealmaker
The Carlyle Group
Read, having recently left Pfizer's chairman role, will join the The Carlyle Group's healthcare team as a deal scout, strategy mentor and operations guru. For Read, the Carlyle job comes on the heels of his taking on a board seat at Viatris, the company formed by Mylan's merger with Pfizer’s established medicines business Upjohn. That deal is expected to close in mid-2020. Read is no stranger to dealmaking. During his 10-year run as Pfizer’s CEO, he pulled off several major transactions, including the $14 billion buyout of Medivation in 2016 that gave the company blockbuster prostate cancer drug Xtandi. And as CFO before that, he oversaw Pfizer's 2009 megamerger with Wyeth. FiercePharma
'Deck chairs on the Titanic'?: AMAG's CEO departure, drug dumps mayContent not right the ship, analyst says
AMAG Pharmaceuticals
Heiden has agreed to step down following a strategic review spurred by activist investor Caligan Partners that also recommended the sale or spinoff of two women's health drugs, female libido treatment Vyleesi and painful sex med Intrarosa, the company said Thursday. Heiden will stay on with AMAG through the successor search, which the company expects to wrap up by mid-2020, it said. Heiden's planned departure comes more than two months after an FDA advisory committee recommended AMAG pull premature birth med Makena from the market in a 9-7 vote after confirmatory testing showed little clinical benefit in patients. FiercePharma
Ex-Lilly U.S. chief Conterno takes FibroGen helm ahead of key drug launch
Fibrogen
Enrique Conterno will join as CEO.
Conterno, who retired from Eli Lilly two months ago as its U.S. business chief and worldwide diabetes lead, has signed on as FibroGen’s new CEO, the biotech said Monday. Jim Schoeneck, interim CEO since August and a 10-year FibroGen board member, has moved to the chairman role. Conterno is credited with returning Lilly’s diabetes business to the industry's top spot, with annual revenue of more than $10 billion. During his tenure, Boehringer Ingelheim-shared SGLT2 drug Jardiance made diabetes treatment history by racking up the field’s first cardiovascular approval after showing it can cut heart-related death risks. FiercePharma
> Robert Funck, Jr., will take the place of Brian Yoor as chief financial officer and executive VP of finance at Abbott Laboratories effective March 1. This change will serve as a short prelude before President and Chief Operating Officer Robert Ford takes the reins as CEO, starting April 1, from longtime chief Miles White—who announced his own plans to retire last November after serving as chairman and CEO since 1999. FierceBiotech
> Tim Miller, president and CSO of Abeona Therapeutics, will resign from his position effective today. Miller was a founding CEO of the company, becoming CSO and president last spring. FierceBiotech
> Keith Gottesdiener, M.D., president, CEO and board member at Rhythm Pharmaceuticals intends to step down from the drugmaker once it submits its genetic obesity candidate setmelanotide to the FDA. FierceBiotech
> IFM Therapeutics snagged Michael Cooke, Ph.D., to become its newest CSO. Cooke joins from stem cell biotech Magenta Therapeutics, where he held the same position. Cooke arrives a month after Martin Seidel, Ph.D.—previously IFM’s R&D chief—took over as CEO. FierceBiotech
> ViiV Healthcare CEO Deborah Waterhouse will join GlaxoSmithKline's corporate executive team. Waterhouse joined GSK in 1996 and has worked in a number of commercial leadership roles in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S. Release
> Intrexon, now named Precigen, has appointed Helen Sabzevari, Ph.D, as CEO. Sabzevari joined the subsidiary in June 2017 as head of R&D before her promotion to president five months later. Sabzevari came to Precigen shortly after Intrexon’s previous president and CEO-in-waiting Geno Germano jumped ship to stay in the biotech business. FierceBiotech
> Carmel, Indiana-based MBX Biosciences has tapped Kent Hawryluk, a cofounder and board member, to the position of president and CEO. Hawryluk is a co-founder and a member of MBX’s board of directors. Greg Davis, Ph.D., has also been appointed as VP of product development. Hawryluk co-founded Marcadia Biotech and MB2 and since 2003 has served as partner of Twilight Venture Partners. Most recently, he was a co-founder and chief business officer of Avidity Biosciences. Release
> Thousand Oaks, California-based Dyve Biosciences has tapped longtime Pfizer executive Chuck Harbert, Ph.D., as chief scientific officer. Harbert has three decades of experience at Pfizer, including as VP of U.S. exploratory development and strategic planning. Release
> Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Rubius Therapeutics has named Laurence Turka, M.D., as its first chief scientific officer, effective Jan. 21. Prior to Rheos, Turka was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Third Rock Ventures and prior to that spent 30 years in academia. Release
> Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Immuneering Corporation has tapped Howard Kaufman, M.D., as head of research and development. Kaufman served as president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer from 2014-16.
> Philadelphia-based Carisma Therapeutics has named Debora Barton, M.D., as chief medical officer and Tom Wilton as chief business officer. Barton most recently served as senior VP of clinical and safety at Iovance Biotherapeutics. Wilton was most was mostly recently CBO of LogicBio Therapeutics. Release
> Antengene has appointed John Chin as CBO. Prior to joining Antengene, Chin was country general manager at Celgene China as part of his 15-year stint at the company. He previously worked at both Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck. Release
> Florham Park, New Jersey-based Phathom Pharmaceuticals has named Martin Gilligan as chief commercial officer. Gilligan most recently was corporate VP at Celgene. Prior to Celgene, Gilligan held roles at Pharmacia, Johnson & Johnson and Merck. Release
> Pasadena, California-based Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals has named James Hassard as its first chief commercial officer. Hassard served as senior VP of marketing and market access at Coherus BioSciences since 2016. Before Coherus, Hassard served as VP of marketing at Medivation prior to and through its acquisition by Pfizer. Release
> Craig Tooman will join Princeton, New Jersey-based Vyome Therapeutics as chief operating officer and chief financial officer. Prior to Vyome, Tooman served as CEO of Aratana Therapeutics, which merged with Elanco Animal Health in July. Before Aratana, Tooman served as founder and CEO of Avanzar Medical.
> ALX Oncology has appointed Peter S. García as chief financial officer. García most recently served as VP and CFO of PDL BioPharma. Release
> Toronto-based FSD Pharma is fleshing out its executive team with the appointments of Donal Carroll as chief financial officer, Sandra Lottes as VP and head of clinical research of FSD's biosciences division and Shahzad Shah as chief operating officer of FV Pharma.
> Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vor Biopharma is expanding its leadership team, appointing Amy Mendel as chief legal officer and Tania Philipp as VP of people. Release
> New York-based Turnstone Biologic has appointed Saryah Azmat as senior vice president of business development and corporate strategy. Azmat joins Turnstone Biologics from Bristol-Myers Squibb, where she was the global lead for oncology search and evaluation. Prior to Bristol, she was a consultant for global biopharma clients at Putnam Associates. Release
> Warsaw, Indiana-based Zimmer Biomet has tapped Keri P. Mattox as senior VP of investor relations and chief communications officer. Mattox joins Zimmer Biomet from W2O Group, where she served as global lead of integrated corporate communications.
> Boston-based Akouos has appointed Morgan Molloy as chief corporate development officer and Karoline Shair, Ph.D., J.D., as senior VP, general counsel and corporate secretary.