Joan Shen ends the year by saying goodbye to I-Mab; CRISPR Therapeutics puts coal in R&D chief’s stocking

Deck the halls with more ap­point­ments in the last Peer Re­view for 2021. Thanks for read­ing every week! → When the cal­en­dar flips to 2022, Joan Shen is out at I-Mab ‘to pur­sue oth­er in­ter­ests,’ leav­ing founder and chair­man Jing­wu Zang to suc­ceed her as act­ing CEO in a bit of a sur­prise. Un­der Shen’s lead­er­ship, I-Mab formed a CD47 al­liance with Ab­b­Vie in Sep­tem­ber 2020 with lem­zopar­limab as the cen­ter­piece, and a year lat­er our Am­ber Tong de­tailed I-Mab’s as­pi­ra­tions for oth­er com­pa­ra­ble part­ner­ships, no­tably for de­vel­op­ment of the CD73 an­ti­body uliledlimab. Shen was one of our 20 Women in Bio­phar­ma R&D hon­orees this month.

Else­where at I-Mab, An­drew Zhu — for­mer­ly a mem­ber of the Chi­nese biotech’s sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board — has been named pres­i­dent and will lead glob­al R&D ef­forts. He al­so grabs a seat on I-Mab’s board of di­rec­tors. → Ac­cord­ing to a Form 8-K, CRISPR Ther­a­peu­tics has dis­missed EVP and R&D chief Tony Ho af­ter four years on the job in a terse­ly-word­ed state­ment: ‘Dr. Ho’s ter­mi­na­tion is with­out cause and not the re­sult of any dis­agree­ment with the Com­pa­ny.’ Ho made the jump to CRISPR in 2017 from As­traZeneca, where he led de­vel­op­ment on such drugs as Imfinzi and was head of on­col­o­gy in­no­va­tion and in­te­gra­tion. His ouster comes two months af­ter End­points News looked un­der the hood at CRISPR’s off-the-shelf CAR-T da­ta, in which CEO Samarth Kulka­rni ex­pressed en­thu­si­asm about safe­ty while ques­tion marks re­main over dura­bil­i­ty. → End­points al­so spot­light­ed Saman­tha Du in our Women in Bio­phar­ma R&D spe­cial, and Zai Lab has pro­mot­ed Har­ald Rein­hart from CMO to pres­i­dent and head of glob­al de­vel­op­ment, neu­ro­science, au­toim­mune and in­fec­tious dis­eases. Rein­hardt, an ad­vi­sor when Zai Lab was found­ed and med­ical chief for the au­toim­mune and in­fec­tious dis­eases port­fo­lio since 2017, was Sh­iono­gi’s head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and med­ical af­fairs and is al­so the ex-VP and ther­a­peu­tic area head, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and med­ical af­fairs at No­var­tis. Zai Lab’s busy 2021 be­gan by grab­bing the Greater Chi­na rights to ar­genx’s drug ef­gar­tigi­mod — which was just ap­proved for gen­er­al­ized myas­the­nia gravis this week — and it’s on­ly con­tin­ued by dip­ping in­to the neu­ro space with Karuna Ther­a­peu­tics and pay­ing $25 mil­lion up­front for the rights to two EGFR TKI in­hibitors from Blue­print Med­i­cines. → An­drin Os­wald is tak­ing a med­ical leave of ab­sence from his post as Cen­to­gene CEO ‘for a pe­ri­od of at least four weeks,’ the rare dis­ease biotech said in a state­ment. Pinch-hit­ting for Os­wald is Kim Strat­ton, one year af­ter she re­signed as CEO of Or­p­hazyme — which has tried to keep its seat belts fas­tened dur­ing a bumpy ride of fail­ures per­tain­ing to its ‘pipeline-in-a-prod­uct’ ari­mo­clo­mol. Os­wald re­placed found­ing CEO Arndt Rolfs at Cen­to­gene on Dec. 1, 2020. → Peek­ing at an­oth­er Form 8-K, Ab­b­Vie CFO Rob Michael has tacked on vice chair­man, fi­nance and com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions to his ti­tle af­ter three years as EVP. Michael got his start at Ab­bott in 1993, and af­ter the Ab­bott-Ab­b­Vie split, he be­came the phar­ma gi­ant’s VP, fi­nan­cial plan­ning and analy­sis. Pri­or to his pro­mo­tion to CFO, he served as VP, cor­po­rate con­troller. Back in late Sep­tem­ber, Ab­b­Vie stepped on Bio­haven’s turf with an FDA ap­proval for ato­gepant, an oral CGRP re­cep­tor an­tag­o­nist now mar­ket­ed as Qulip­ta. → Zurich-based liv­er dis­ease biotech Ver­san­tis has named Mark Fitz­patrick as CEO, end­ing co-founder Vin­cent Forster’s run in the top spot be­gin­ning Jan. 1. Fitz­patrick is the ex-pres­i­dent and CEO at Chi­as­ma, the mak­er of the acromegaly drug My­capssa which was sold to Am­ryt in May for $330 mil­lion, and he’s in his first year on the board of di­rec­tors at Al­lena Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Forster will tran­si­tion to the role of CSO at Ver­san­tis, which raised its last bun­dle of cash in Sep­tem­ber 2019. → An­drew Hall has torn off the in­ter­im la­bel and has been named per­ma­nent CEO of No­va Sco­tia-based IMV. The Mer­ck and Cel­gene vet had re­placed CEO Fred­er­ic Ors on an in­ter­im ba­sis in Au­gust af­ter tak­ing the CBO job in No­vem­ber 2020. Be­fore join­ing IMV — which is de­vel­op­ing its lead can­di­date maveropepimut-S in mul­ti­ple can­cer in­di­ca­tions — Hall was Cel­gene’s ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and glob­al al­liances. → Derek Hicks has left Spark to be­come CBO at In­tel­lia, the biotech co-found­ed by Jen­nifer Doud­na that caused a tec­ton­ic shift this sum­mer by show­ing that CRISPR could be used to ed­it DNA di­rect­ly in­to pa­tients. In Oc­to­ber 2020, Hicks had joined Spark as head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment af­ter spend­ing more than 16 years at Pfiz­er, clos­ing out his time as the drug gi­ant’s VP of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment, world­wide busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. In­tel­lia al­so inked a CRISPR part­ner­ship with Spar­ingVi­sion in Oc­to­ber, fo­cus­ing on three eye dis­ease tar­gets. → Shankar Ra­maswamy’s gene ther­a­py out­fit Kriya Ther­a­peu­tics has se­lect­ed Neera Ravin­dran as CFO. Ravin­dran spent the last two years with Glax­o­SmithK­line’s Covid-19 an­ti­body part­ner Vir as VP, head of in­vestor re­la­tions & strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and she’s al­so been head of in­vestor re­la­tions for North Amer­i­ca with Roche/Genen­tech. Kriya brought its to­tal raise to $180 mil­lion with a $100 mil­lion Se­ries B this sum­mer that was head­lined by board mem­ber Jim Mom­tazee at Pa­tient Square Cap­i­tal. → Finch Ther­a­peu­tics, the mi­cro­bio­me biotech that fol­lowed up its Se­ries C raise with a $128 mil­lion IPO in March, has pro­mot­ed Joseph Vit­tiglio to chief busi­ness and le­gal of­fi­cer. Vit­tiglio joined Finch a year ago as gen­er­al coun­sel and cor­po­rate sec­re­tary af­ter five years at AM­AG Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, where he was CBO and gen­er­al coun­sel. He’s al­so been a le­gal ex­ec with Flex­ion Ther­a­peu­tics and Aveo Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. → Proven­tion Bio has spent the last cou­ple months of 2021 re­fash­ion­ing its lead­er­ship, and this week brings more of the same by nam­ing Christi­na Yi as COO and pro­mot­ing Bene­dict Os­o­rio to chief qual­i­ty of­fi­cer. Yi is an Am­gen alum who spent the last year in the COO post at Vac­cin­i­ty af­ter 11 years with Den­dreon, and Os­o­rio be­came SVP of qual­i­ty at Proven­tion Bio in Au­gust 2020 af­ter serv­ing as COO at Prog­en­ics Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. He’s al­so made stops as a qual­i­ty as­sur­ance ex­ec at Achillion and Acor­da Ther­a­peu­tics. Along with these ap­point­ments, Proven­tion Bio has al­so re­cent­ly hired a new CFO, re­search and ear­ly de­vel­op­ment chief and SVP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

→ Suzhou, Chi­na-based Tran­scen­ta has pulled in for­mer CStone ex­ec Daniel Weng as CFO. Dur­ing his tenure at CStone, Weng served as VP and head of fi­nance. Pri­or to that, Weng had stints at Ever­est Med­i­cines (VP and head of fi­nance) and Am­gen (CFO of Chi­na). → Boehringer In­gel­heim can­cer part­ner OSE Im­munother­a­peu­tics out of Nantes, France has made a batch of hires, start­ing with Lau­rence de Schoulep­nikoff as CBO. An 11-year No­var­tis vet in busi­ness de­vel­op­ment, de Schoulep­nikoff spent the last three years as CBO and COO of AMAL Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and she was briefly the se­nior di­rec­tor of BD at Fer­ring Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Else­where, OSE Im­munother­a­peu­tics has wel­comed Lin­da Lebon as chief reg­u­la­to­ry of­fi­cer; Sil­via Comis as head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment; and Françoise Bono as se­nior strate­gic de­vel­op­ment di­rec­tor. Lebon has been chief reg­u­la­to­ry of­fi­cer be­fore with Os­i­vax and was VP of reg­u­la­to­ry af­fairs at ar­genx. Comis hails from IQVIA, where she was se­nior med­ical di­rec­tor, on­col­o­gy, and she was el­e­vat­ed to Eu­ro­pean head of ear­ly prod­ucts med­ical af­fairs in on­col­o­gy dur­ing her sev­en years at No­var­tis. And Bono, a Sanofi vet and the for­mer head of on­col­o­gy at Evotec, al­so held the role of CSO at Onx­eo. → Fo­cused on G-pro­tein cou­pled re­cep­tors (GPCRs) and equipped with a $100 mil­lion Se­ries B, ShouTi has ap­point­ed Ding Ding as CFO. She was re­cent­ly head of health­care in­vest­ment bank­ing and cap­i­tal mar­kets at Cred­it Su­isse af­ter stints at UBS and Bar­clays. Led by Re­cep­tos co-founder Ray­mond Stevens, ShouTi is tack­ling pul­monary ar­te­r­i­al hy­per­ten­sion first and has stud­ies lined up for type 2 di­a­betes/obe­si­ty and id­io­path­ic pul­monary fi­bro­sis.

→ Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease-fo­cused Neu­roSense Ther­a­peu­tics has brought on a slate of new hires to its ex­ec team and board of di­rec­tors. The Cam­bridge, MA-based com­pa­ny has brought in Fer­enc Tracik as CMO. Tracik comes with ex­pe­ri­ence from for­mer stints at Bio­gen, No­var­tis and Or­p­hazyme.

The four new board mem­bers con­sist of Yael Ger­man (Is­raeli mem­ber of Knes­set and for­mer min­is­ter of health); Caren Dear­dorf (CCO of Ma­gen­ta Ther­a­peu­tics); Chris­tine Pel­liz­zari (chief le­gal of­fi­cer of Sci­ence 37); and Cary Clai­borne (COO of Adi­al Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals).

→ Thomas Heine­man has climbed high­er in the ranks at Cal­gary-based On­colyt­ics Biotech, mov­ing from glob­al head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and op­er­a­tions to CMO. Heine­man joined On­colyt­ics in Au­gust 2020, and pri­or to that he served as SVP and head of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at De­n­o­vo Bio­phar­ma. → San Diego whole-cell can­cer vac­cine biotech Neu­vo­gen has cor­ralled George Mont­gomery as CFO. Mont­gomery, the co-founder and ex-fi­nance chief at Co­herus Bio­Sciences, has re­cent­ly been man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of WestRiv­er Group and is cur­rent­ly on the board of di­rec­tors at Ash­vattha Ther­a­peu­tics. He’s al­so had seats on the boards of Lu­men Bio­science, Viome and Boston Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. → Bel­gian biotech Agomab is mak­ing a pair of hires af­ter a $74 mil­lion Se­ries B raise in March with Regi­nald Brys as head of re­search and Maria Nichol as head of IP. Brys and Nichol both hail from Gala­pa­gos — Brys was VP, head of dis­ease bi­ol­o­gy and Nichol was VP, head of in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty at the Gilead part­ner that’s been on a down­ward spi­ral across the pipeline af­ter the fil­go­tinib fail, has­ten­ing the ex­it of CEO On­no van de Stolpe. Agomab’s lead can­di­date, ORG-129, is an oral small mol­e­cule ALK-5 in­hibitor in Phase I for Crohn’s dis­ease. → It’s on­ly been two whole months since ex-AM­AG Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals chief Scott My­ers was ap­point­ed chair­man some­where (we kid here at Peer Re­view) — this time around he’s chair­ing the board at French hear­ing loss out­fit Sen­so­ri­on. Dy­navax and Har­poon Ther­a­peu­tics tapped My­ers as chair­man on the same week in late Oc­to­ber.

→ Chemomab CEO Dale Pfost has al­so been named chair­man of the board as Gen­nao Bio CEO Stephen Squin­to steps aside com­plete­ly from the board. Pfost, the ex-CEO of Lo­do Ther­a­peu­tics, took on the chief ex­ec­u­tive role at the Is­raeli fi­brot­ic dis­ease biotech in Sep­tem­ber. → BIO’s pres­i­dent and CEO Michelle Mc­Mur­ry-Heath is mak­ing her way over to the board of di­rec­tors at Bioven­tus. Mc­Mur­ry-Heath brings to the role her ex­pe­ri­ence from her role as VP, ex­ter­nal in­no­va­tion, glob­al leader for reg­u­la­to­ry sci­ence at J&J as well as her time spent at the FDA and the As­pen In­sti­tute.

→ William Link, the chair­man at Glaukos the last 20 years, is re­tir­ing ef­fec­tive Dec. 31 and Thomas Burns will re­place the Ver­sant co-founder at the Cal­i­for­nia oph­thalmic dis­ease play­er. Burns has helmed Glaukos and held a board seat since March 2002. Glaukos al­so an­nounced that Mark Fo­ley, a board mem­ber since 2014, has been named lead in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tor. → Art Krieg’s Check­mate Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, look­ing for a per­ma­nent CEO af­ter Bar­ry Labinger’s ex­it, has elect­ed Joy Yan to the board of di­rec­tors. A vet­er­an of Bay­er, Janssen and Bris­tol My­ers Squibb, Yan is the cur­rent CMO at Am­brx Bio­phar­ma.

→ Cabome­tyx mak­er Ex­elix­is has added tech ex­ec Jacque­line Wright to its board of di­rec­tors. Wright, the cor­po­rate VP and chief dig­i­tal of­fi­cer, US busi­ness at Mi­crosoft, joined the tech gi­ant 10 years ago as VP, IT strate­gic en­ter­prise ser­vices in 2011. → Anne Marie de Jonge Schuer­mans will take over Ré­mi Droller’s seat on the board of di­rec­tors at Phar­varis, chaired by Rhythm Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals CEO David Meek­er. Cur­rent­ly head of tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions at So­bi, de Jonge Schuer­mans spent three years as a man­u­fac­tur­ing and sup­ply chain ex­ec at Bio­gen.

→ Su­san Clement-Davies and Sir Robert Lech­ler have been added to the board of di­rec­tors at Lon­don-based Eli Lil­ly RNA part­ner Mi­NA Ther­a­peu­tics. Clement-Davies was man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of eq­ui­ty cap­i­tal mar­kets at Cit­i­group, while Lech­ler is provost and SVP (health) at King’s Col­lege Lon­don and a board mem­ber at Quell Ther­a­peu­tics. He’s al­so been head of the Di­vi­sion of Med­i­cine at Im­pe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don.

→ San Diego-based BioAt­la has reeled in Ed­ward Williams to its board of di­rec­tors. Williams brings a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence to the role with for­mer stints at No­vo Nordisk, No­var­tis and Up­john. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Williams serves as an ad­vi­sor to the CEO of As­cendis Phar­ma and has served as the com­pa­ny’s in­ter­im US CCO from Au­gust 2020 to May 2021.

→ Vu­ja De Sci­ences has brought on Carl Bar­rett to its board of di­rec­tors. Bar­ret cur­rent­ly serves as VP of trans­la­tion­al sci­ence in the on­col­o­gy in­no­v­a­tive med­i­cines di­vi­sion at As­traZeneca. Pri­or to that, Bar­ret held roles at No­var­tis On­col­o­gy Trans­la­tion­al Med­i­cine, the NCI’s Cen­ter for Can­cer Re­search and the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of En­vi­ron­men­tal Health Sci­ences.

→ Dig­i­tal cell bi­ol­o­gy com­pa­ny Berke­ley Lights has pulled out a seat for Jes­si­ca Hop­field on its board of di­rec­tors. Hop­field cur­rent­ly serves as pres­i­dent of J Hop­field Con­sult­ing and for­mer­ly served as a part­ner of McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny.
https://endpts.com/joan-shen-ends-the-year-by-saying-goodbye-to-i-mab-crispr-therapeutics-puts-coal-in-rd-chiefs-stocking/