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 Fraiser Kansteiner, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
TRexBio has Jurassic day picking up ex-Lilly VP as CEO, snagging Big Pharma funding
TRexBio
Johnston Erwin has rejoined the company as CEO.
Just as TRexBio sunk its teeth into the final tranche of its $59 million series A, the company said it was adding a new CEO and chief medical officer. Erwin comes to TRex from Eli Lilly, where he worked for 36 years and most recently held the title of vice president of corporate business development for the Big Pharma's venture portfolio. He actually helped found the company three years ago while managing Lilly's venture capital operation. He told Fierce Biotech he was getting back into the TRex game thanks to the company's science, its team of discovery scientists and a platform of more than 20 new tissue-focused targets. TRex's new CMO, Ovid Trifan, M.D., Ph.D., comes over from Apexigen, where he held the same role, plus that of vice president of development. Trifan had stints at Bristol Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson prior to that. Fierce Biotech
BioMarin's gene therapy lead jumps ship to rival biotech Vedere Bio II
Vedere Bio II
Gabor Veres, Ph.D. steps up to the plate as chief scientific officer.
Shortly after a $77 million raise, the follow-up to Vedere Bio has poached a new chief scientific officer from biotech rival BioMarin. Veres is joining the next-gene eye disease gene therapy company from his previous role as vice president and head of gene therapy research at BioMarin. There, he focused on AAV platform discovery and seeking out new indications. Veres also had runs at bluebird bio and Applied Genetic Technologies. Novartis ponied up $150 million upfront to buy Vedere last fall, with a promise of $130 million more. In the aftermath of that deal, Vedere CEO Cyrus Mozayeni, M.D., and his team ginned up $77 million for the company's second act, Vedere II. Fierce Biotech
Galapagos CSO Wigerinck hits the bricks after major setbacks
Galapagos
Piet Wigerinck, Ph.D., is stepping down as CSO later this year.
Wigerinck is exiting Galapagos after nearly 13 years with the company following a series of setbacks that have eroded confidence in the company's pipeline. Chief Medical Officer Walid Abi-Saab, M.D., has picked up the torch on early-stage development tasks previously handled by Wigerinck. For his part, Wigerinck is sticking around for the next five months to steer research while Galapagos hunts for a new leader. At the Belgian biotech, Wigerinck oversaw the first clinical trial and the phase 2 FITZROY and DARWIN studies of the once-hyped JAK1 inhibitor filgotinib. Recently, however, the FDA rejected that drug, and Galapagos' phase 3 ziritaxestat trial flopped. Fierce Biotech
> Allogene Overland Biopharm, the new joint venture from Overland Pharmaceuticals and Allogene Therapeutics, is welcoming WuXi veteran Shuyuan Yao, Ph.D., as its CEO. He comes over from WuXi Advanced Therapies, a part of WuXi AppTec, where he served as chief scientific officer and head of research and technology development. Fierce Biotech
> Athira Pharma's president and CEO Leen Kawas, Ph.D., has been put on leave over allegations that she altered images in academic research run at Washington State University (WSU). Athira, which is working on a prospect for Alzheimer's disease, went public last year with one of the biggest biotech IPOs of 2020, ginning up $204 million in proceeds. Kawas will be replaced for now by COO Mark Litton, Ph.D. She will remain on the board, but an independent special committee has been formed to conduct a review of her research at WSU. Fierce Biotech
> Alchemab Therapeutics has tapped Douglas Treco, Ph.D., to lead its quest to develop therapies for hard-to-treat diseases. As CEO, Treco will initially help Alcehmab along the path to develop therapeutic options for neurodegenerative conditions and oncology. Treco is taking the reins from Alex Leech, who saw the company go from inception to series A. Leech will return to scouting companies as a venture partner at SV Health Investors. Fierce Biotech
> Clinical-stage Yumanity Therapeutics, on a mission to discover and develop innovative treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, has called upon Devin Smith as senior vice president and general counsel. He comes over from Minerva Neurosciences, where he was senior vice president and general counsel. Yumanity’s lead prospect is YTX-7739, currently in phase 1 for Parkinson’s disease. The company also has programs in Lewy body dementia, multi-system atrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal lobar dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in its pipeline. Release (PDF)
> Ocugen is working on gene therapies to cure blindness—and developing a COVID-19 vaccine to boot. Now, Ken Inchausti will chip in as head of investor relations and communications, spearheading corporate communications, proactive media and social media relations programming, and more. He comes on board from diabetes juggernaut Novo Nordisk, where he was senior director of reputation and brand. There, he led corporate media relations, executive visibility, reputation strategy and research, crisis and issues management and corporate communications. Release
> Atsena Therapeutics has enlisted internist and cardiologist Kenji Fujita, M.D., on its quest to develop gene therapies against blindness. He enters the newly minted role of chief medical officer from Alnylam, where he was vice president of clinical development and led the filing and registration of the hyperoxaluria med Oxlumo. Fujita previously held clinical development roles at Alexion and Merck, as well. Release
> Merck has forged the new role of executive vice president and chief strategy officer, which 23-year company veteran Michael Klobuchar will assume July 5. He’ll join the company’s executive committee from his current post as senior vice president, Merck Research Laboratories Finance and Global Project and Alliance Management. Before that, he was SVP of corporate strategy and financial planning. Klobuchar first signed on with Merck in 1998 as a synthetic process development engineer. Release
> Pacific Biosciences of California’s latest appoint extends well beyond the West Coast. The genomics outfit has tapped Neil Ward as vice president and general manager for the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa region, a newly created role. Before jumping on the Pacific wave, Ward worked at Illumina, most recently as senior sales director for northern Europe. He’s also had a hand in many of the world’s biggest genomics projects, including Genomics England’s 100,000 Genome Project, the Estonian Genome Project and the whole genome sequencing of the 500,000 UK Biobank samples. Release
> Immuno-dermatology company Arcutis Biotherapeutics has summoned Greg Sukay to the post of vice president, manufacturing and process technologies. Sukay will be in charge of external manufacturing and process development for the company’s dermatology pipeline. Arcutis is studying cream and foam formulations of its lead prospect, topical roflumilast, as a potential transformative treatment for chronic plaque psoriasis, scalp psoriasis, seborrheic dermatitis and eczema. Sukay joins after a 22-year run at Amgen, where he most recently held the title of executive director of Amgen Contract Manufacturing. Release
> Anavo Therapeutics, questing to unlock the treatment potential of human phosphatase biology, has bolstered its scientific advisory board by three. Karl-Heinz Altmann, Ph.D., is a full professor of pharmaceutical science at ETH Zurich and head of the department of chemistry and applied biosciences; Andrew Mortlock, Ph.D., is the head of AstraZeneca’s hematology portfolio and the chief scientific officer of Acerta Pharma; and Gregg Siegal, Ph.D., is the CEO of ZoBio and an endowed professor of science, chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences at VU Amsterdam. The scientific advisory board will lend its expertise to the development of Anavo’s drug discovery portfolio in oncology and help build a platform to address the phosphatase therapeutic target class across multiple indications. Release
> Sante Fe, New Mexico’s Avisa Diagnostics has welcomed G. Michael Landis to the team as chief financial officer. He takes up the baton from Matthew Culler, who’ll stick around as an adviser during a “transition period,” the company said in a release. For his part, Culler led the company through its merger with Fogchain Corp. plus its listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange. Landis comes on board from Lannett Company, where he most recently held the title of principal accounting officer and treasurer. Release