Joseph Arron marches to the beat of his own drum at 23andMe; Ex-Voyager CFO joins Sek Kathiresan at Verve Therapeutics

Joseph Ar­ron is some­times re­ferred to as the black sheep of his fam­i­ly. While every­one else is a pro­fes­sion­al mu­si­cian, he was al­ways more in­ter­est­ed in sci­ence.

‘I played mu­sic, but I was nev­er that keen on pur­su­ing that as a ca­reer,’ Ar­ron says, adding that his dad played in or­ches­tras, his mom was the di­rec­tor of Carnegie Hall, and his broth­er is a pro­fes­sion­al cel­list.

Ar­ron is a mae­stro in a dif­fer­ent kind of field — and now, ge­net­ic da­ta will be the mu­sic to his ears as he leaves a 15-year ca­reer at Genen­tech to be­come 23andMe’s new CSO.

’23andMe’s strate­gic ad­van­tage is ob­vi­ous­ly its data­base,’ Ar­ron says in an in­ter­view with End­points News. ‘What at­tract­ed me here at this par­tic­u­lar time was the re­al­iza­tion of how large the data­base re­al­ly is.’

The com­pa­ny — large­ly known for its sali­va col­lec­tion prod­ucts that can map out an in­di­vid­ual’s an­ces­try and de­ter­mine ge­net­ic risks to cer­tain dis­eases — now has around 12 mil­lion cus­tomers, about 80% of whom have con­sent­ed for re­search to be done on their ge­net­ic da­ta.

‘Do­ing genome-wide analy­ses can be very chal­leng­ing. And here we’ve got this scale that, based on all of the phe­no­typ­ic da­ta that we have, even if we want to zoom in on a small sub­set of the pop­u­la­tion, there’s still quite an im­pres­sive num­ber there,’ Ar­ron says.

The Stan­ford grad was lured to 23andMe by head of ther­a­peu­tics Ken­neth Hillan, whom he met while work­ing at Genen­tech. The two had kept in touch af­ter Hillan left Genen­tech, and sev­er­al months ago Hillan reached out about an open­ing he told Ar­ron would be ‘right up your al­ley.’

Ar­ron didn’t al­ways know he want­ed to go in­to in­dus­try. When he was a PhD stu­dent at Stan­ford back in the late ’90s, he re­calls go­ing to ca­reer days where a pan­el of 10 or so alum­ni would re­turn to speak about their jobs. He al­ways thought the most in­ter­est­ing pan­elists were the one or two who went in­to the in­dus­try or FDA — but it wasn’t un­til a Genen­tech re­cruiter reached out to him as a post­doc that he con­sid­ered go­ing in­to drug­mak­ing him­self.

‘They said there’s a biotech com­pa­ny that’s look­ing for an im­mu­nol­o­gist with med­ical train­ing to join them to sort of launch an ef­fort to do bio­mark­er dis­cov­ery and trans­la­tion­al re­search in in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­eases,’ Ar­ron said.

He’d heard of Genen­tech, and it was a short dri­ve away, so he de­cid­ed to hear them out. Af­ter vis­it­ing the com­pa­ny sev­en times, he was con­vinced the po­si­tion was per­fect. He stayed for the next 15 years, work­ing his way up from sci­en­tist to VP of im­munol­o­gy re­search.

Now Ar­ron will be tasked with lead­ing a ma­jor shift for 23andMe, as it con­tin­ues to build up its ther­a­peu­tics unit. In 2018, the com­pa­ny signed a $300 mil­lion deal giv­ing Glax­o­SmithK­line ac­cess to its ge­net­ic data­base — and just last sum­mer, the part­ners launched their first clin­i­cal study for a CD96-block­ing an­ti­body aimed at di­rect­ing the im­mune sys­tem to at­tack can­cer cells. 23andMe hit an­oth­er ma­jor mile­stone al­most two years ago, when it out-li­censed the first drug pro­gram it de­vel­oped in-house to a Span­ish der­ma­tol­ogy com­pa­ny called Almi­rall.

‘Our in­ten­tion is to be able to de­vel­op our own projects as we go along,’ Ar­ron said. ‘I just think we have to be ju­di­cious about where does it make sense to do this with a part­ner or where does it make sense to go it alone.’

— Nicole De­Feud­is → Verve Ther­a­peu­tics has ex­e­cut­ed the 1-2 punch of a Se­ries B round and a size­able IPO in 2021, and this week Sek Kathire­san’s car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease-fo­cused biotech has brought in Al­li­son Dor­val as CFO. Ac­cord­ing to a Form 8-K, Dor­val in­formed Voy­ager Ther­a­peu­tics of her de­ci­sion to leave on Nov. 16 af­ter three years as fi­nance chief; back in May, pres­i­dent and CEO An­dre Turenne left Voy­ager along with R&D head Omar Khwa­ja, but the tur­moil with­in the biotech eased up a bit as it struck a gene ther­a­py deal with Pfiz­er in Oc­to­ber. In ad­di­tion to this new gig, Dor­val is on the board of di­rec­tors at Puma Biotech­nol­o­gy and Aerovate Ther­a­peu­tics.

→ On Wednes­day, No­var­tis Gene Ther­a­pies tweet­ed out the in­tro­duc­tion of Chris Fox as pres­i­dent. Fox steps away from Am­gen, where she was VP and US gen­er­al man­ag­er of the fol­low­ing ther­a­peu­tic ar­eas: car­diometa­bol­ic, bone and nephrol­o­gy. She al­so spent more than a dozen years in sev­er­al ca­pac­i­ties at Take­da, name­ly VP of sales and VP of op­er­a­tions.

We are pleased to an­nounce the ap­point­ment of Chris­tine (Chris) Fox as Pres­i­dent, No­var­tis Gene Ther­a­pies, Inc. pic.twit­ter.com/MWs­sI­Jvk­pa

— No­var­tis Gene Ther­a­pies (@No­var­tis­Gene) De­cem­ber 1, 2021 → Eli Lil­ly vet Jude Onyia has been named CSO of Neu­ro­crine, which inked a deal with So­sei Hep­tares a cou­ple weeks ago for $100 mil­lion up­front that ze­roes in on the schiz­o­phre­nia drug HTL-0016878. Onyia, who was re­cent­ly chief sci­en­tist at Bob Cud­di­hy’s gene ther­a­py shop Cap­si­da Bio­ther­a­peu­tics, spent a quar­ter cen­tu­ry with Eli Lil­ly and round­ed out his tenure at the In­di­anapo­lis phar­ma as VP of biotech­nol­o­gy dis­cov­ery re­search. With the new So­sei Hep­tares pact, Neu­ro­crine looks to bounce back af­ter a swing and a miss on the pri­ma­ry end­point with one of the pro­grams in its $2 bil­lion deal with Take­da. → Speak­ing of Lil­ly alums, Jul­lian Jones has been pro­mot­ed to CBO at ‘mol­e­c­u­lar glue’ biotech Monte Rosa Ther­a­peu­tics. Jones was se­nior di­rec­tor of on­col­o­gy busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Lil­ly be­fore join­ing Monte Rosa as head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment in Sep­tem­ber 2020, and she al­so took on a num­ber of roles at Boehringer In­gel­heim from 2013-16. Monte Rosa has been a Peer Re­view fre­quent fly­er as chief ex­ec­u­tive Markus War­muth gets his C-suite in or­der; mean­while, the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to rack up the fi­nanc­ing prizes and made a splash on Nas­daq this sum­mer with an IPO north of $200 mil­lion. → Aim­ing to ‘re­pro­gram’ the tu­mor mi­croen­vi­ron­ment with a fresh $65 mil­lion Se­ries A in its hip pock­et, Parthenon Ther­a­peu­tics has pegged Big Phar­ma alum Tamas Oravecz as CSO. Oravecz makes his way to Parthenon af­ter he was el­e­vat­ed to VP, head of cell ther­a­py plat­form and dis­cov­ery at Janssen. Ear­li­er, he was Cel­gene’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of bi­ol­o­gy and phar­ma­col­o­gy. → Char­maine Lykins has signed on to Boston neu­ro play­er Karuna Ther­a­peu­tics as chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer, 10 months af­ter re­plac­ing cur­rent Vi­a­Cyte CEO Michael Yang un­der the new ti­tle of SVP, glob­al prod­uct plan­ning and chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer of Nu­plazid mak­er Aca­dia. Af­ter 15 years at Eli Lil­ly do­ing mar­ket­ing with­in sev­er­al ther­a­peu­tic ar­eas, in­clud­ing di­a­betes and bipo­lar & de­pres­sion, Lykins jumped to be­come se­nior di­rec­tor of glob­al mar­ket­ing at Sunovion and then the VP of glob­al mar­ket­ing, schiz­o­phre­nia for Lund­beck.

→ In case you missed the news from ear­li­er in the week, GSK poached Pfiz­er’s vi­ral vac­cines lead Philip Dor­mitzer in a rush to cap­i­tal­ize on the fu­ture of mR­NA like its ri­vals at Pfiz­er and BioN­Tech. Dor­mitzer, the for­mer CSO of Pfiz­er’s vi­ral vac­cine unit who al­so was re­spon­si­ble for Pfiz­er’s RNA-based in­fluen­za vac­cine can­di­date de­vel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion with BioN­Tech, will now be tak­ing up the man­tle as glob­al head of vac­cines R&D at GSK. Pri­or to his stint at Pfiz­er, Dor­mitzer had a sev­en-year long ca­reer with No­var­tis, where he even­tu­al­ly served as US head of re­search and head of glob­al vi­rol­o­gy for the com­pa­ny’s vac­cines and di­ag­nos­tics unit.

→ In oth­er big ap­point­ment news from ear­li­er this week, John Maraganore, Al­ny­lam’s CEO who is set to re­tire at the end of the year, is mak­ing his way to ARCH Ven­ture as a new ven­ture part­ner along­side ex-FDA of­fi­cial Lu­ciana Bo­rio, Jake Bauer (pre­vi­ous­ly at MyoKar­dia), Ax­el Bou­chon (for­mer head of Leaps by Bay­er) and Sabah Oney (of Alec­tor fame). Maraganore’s in­ter­est to be like a ‘grand­fa­ther’ to the next gen­er­a­tion of biotech star­tups has al­ready drawn him to the board of di­rec­tors at Beam Ther­a­peu­tics and on­to a sim­i­lar role with Sali­o­Gen. → With its sick­le cell drug etavopi­vat yield­ing pos­i­tive Phase I re­sults in Q2, For­ma Ther­a­peu­tics has ap­point­ed some­one who’s de­vot­ed her ca­reer to the dis­ease as chief pa­tient of­fi­cer. Ifey­in­wa Os­unkwo found­ed and is the di­rec­tor of the Sick­le Cell Dis­ease En­ter­prise at Levine Can­cer In­sti­tute in Char­lotte, NC, and is a pro­fes­sor of med­i­cine and pe­di­atrics at Atri­um Health. Os­unkwo is slat­ed to join CEO Frank Lee’s team at For­ma some­time in Q1 of 2022. → Aveo On­col­o­gy picked it­self up and dust­ed it­self off af­ter a dev­as­tat­ing re­jec­tion in which all but one mem­ber of the FDA pan­el vot­ed against tivozanib in 2013. Earn­ing the agency’s bless­ing with that very drug through an ap­proval in March for re­lapsed or re­frac­to­ry ad­vanced re­nal cell car­ci­no­ma, Aveo has re­cruit­ed Jeb Ledell as COO. Since 2019, Ledell had been COO at En­zy­vant — which just nabbed an ap­proval of its own for the con­gen­i­tal athymia drug Rethymic — and he’s al­so held the same po­si­tion at Com­pass Ther­a­peu­tics. → Erin Brubak­er has ven­tured off to greater Philly-based Code Bio­ther­a­peu­tics as COO. Like CEO Bri­an McVeigh, Brubak­er had a long ca­reer at GSK, spend­ing 22 years at the phar­ma gi­ant and leav­ing in 2018 as VP, R&D strat­e­gy de­vel­op­ment and de­ploy­ment. Right be­fore join­ing McVeigh’s team, Brubak­er was VP, cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment for Pas­sage Bio. On the hunt for gene ther­a­py 2.0 along­side such com­peti­tors as Gen­er­a­tion Bio and the new Michael Ehlers joint In­ter­galac­tic Ther­a­peu­tics, Code Bio de­buted in April with $10 mil­lion in seed fi­nanc­ing. → Un­der the new lead­er­ship of Tom Mc­Court, Iron­wood paid Cour Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny $20 mil­lion up­front for the pri­ma­ry bil­iary cholan­gi­tis drug CNP-104 a month ago. With Phase I ahead, Iron­wood will greet Sra­van Emany as CFO on Mon­day. Emany was cor­po­rate VP, com­mer­cial ex­cel­lence and chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer of In­te­gra Life­Sciences be­fore join­ing the Linzess mak­er. → A cleanup crew has been sore­ly need­ed at Sesen Bio af­ter its blad­der can­cer drug Vicineum got smacked with a CRL in Au­gust and more than 2,000 vi­o­la­tions were dis­cov­ered in the tri­al, so it stands to rea­son that the Cam­bridge, MA biotech has en­list­ed Do­mini­ka Kowal­s­ki as se­nior di­rec­tor of glob­al drug safe­ty fol­low­ing stints at Hori­zon, Ab­b­Vie and Ab­bott. Else­where at Sesen Bio, Jane Pritch­ett Hen­der­son — a for­mer board mem­ber and cur­rent CFO at Till­man Gern­gross’ Ada­gio Ther­a­peu­tics — was named as an ad­vi­sor to CEO Thomas Can­nell.

→ Eli Lil­ly’s bam­lanivimab part­ner Ab­Cellera, which al­so shook hands with Mod­er­na in an mR­NA al­liance in Sep­tem­ber, has cor­ralled Neil Aubu­chon as chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer. Aubu­chon makes the trek to the promi­nent Cana­di­an an­ti­body dis­cov­ery play­er af­ter his time at Am­gen as glob­al mar­ket­ing lead for the drug gi­ant’s gen­er­al med­i­cine ear­ly port­fo­lio. In his 17 years at Lil­ly, Aubu­chon took on a num­ber of posts, in­clud­ing head of strat­e­gy & op­er­a­tions for Lil­ly Bio-Med­i­cines and chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer in Aus­tralia and Japan. → Con­stan­tine Chino­poros has been named CBO of Al­bireo, the re­cip­i­ent of twin ap­provals this sum­mer for its pru­ri­tus drug ode­vix­i­bat, now known as Byl­vay. Most re­cent­ly, Chino­poros held the same po­si­tion at Boston Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, and he’s al­so been a se­nior leader at such big names as Sanofi, Gen­zyme and Eli Lil­ly. → Mar­cio Souza-led Prax­is Pre­ci­sion Med­i­cines has tak­en the Peer Re­view stage with a quar­tet of an­nounce­ments. First, the neu­rol­o­gy biotech has ap­point­ed Mer­ck busi­ness de­vel­op­ment vet Megan Sniecin­s­ki as CBO. Sniecin­s­ki had held the same post at BioCryst since 2019 and has al­so spent five years as an ex­ec at PTC Ther­a­peu­tics. Alyssa Wyant, a PTC alum in her own right, has been pro­mot­ed to chief reg­u­la­to­ry and qual­i­ty of­fi­cer at Prax­is, while long­time Am­gen staffer Karl Hansen (not to be con­fused with Ab­Cellera’s Carl Hansen) gets the bump to chief tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer af­ter serv­ing as SVP of CMC. Fi­nal­ly, co-founder Steven Petrou has ex­it­ed stage left as di­rec­tor of The Flo­rey In­sti­tute of Neu­ro­science and Men­tal Health to fo­cus on his Prax­is re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. → Ven­rock-backed mi­cro­bio­me up­start Fed­er­a­tion Bio, helmed by for­mer 23andMe ex­ec Emi­ly Con­ley, has wel­comed An­dreas Gra
https://endpts.com/joseph-arron-marches-to-the-beat-of-his-own-drum-at-23andme-ex-voyager-cfo-joins-sek-kathiresan-at-verve-therapeutics/