Takeda oncology vet drills down the ‘basics’ at cell therapy startup; Sarepta promotes new R&D chief

Kathryn Cor­zo — an on­col­o­gy vet­er­an and the pro­gram head be­hind Sanofi’s mul­ti­ple myelo­ma mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body isat­ux­imab — is now in the C-suite.

The newest mem­ber at cell ther­a­py play­er bit.bio as their COO, the long­time drug de­vel­op­er left Take­da (where she served, in turn, as the head of on­col­o­gy cell ther­a­py and then a part­ner in its ven­ture arm) to join the small biotech. For Cor­zo, bit.bio pre­sent­ed a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to try and solve is­sues that had been plagu­ing cell ther­a­py — and one of the three rea­sons why she left Take­da.

Aside from bit.bio’s cell cod­ing plat­forms and ‘their abil­i­ty to pret­ty much tar­get any hu­man cell,’ ac­cord­ing to Cor­zo, she left Take­da to both lever­age her ex­pe­ri­ence in drug de­vel­op­ment and build up­on skills that she learned at MIT just a few years pri­or, while get­ting her MBA.

Cor­zo’s jour­ney in­to the world of biotech and med­i­cine be­gan ear­ly in life — born in­to a fam­i­ly of en­gi­neers. And it was when she was grow­ing up that she re­al­ized the im­por­tance of prob­lem solv­ing, along­side a keen in­ter­est in math and sci­ence.

But her pas­sion for on­col­o­gy and can­cer ther­a­py re­al­ly start­ed to come in­to view when a fam­i­ly mem­ber was di­ag­nosed with can­cer — Hodgkin’s lym­phoma.

‘And I saw that in­di­vid­ual go through treat­ment, and re­al­ly, re­al­ly suf­fer through treat­ment. Now, the pos­i­tive out­come is that he’s in re­mis­sion. He has lived his life, and he is do­ing ex­treme­ly well. But that, for me, gal­va­nized my in­ter­est in work­ing to de­vel­op new can­cer ther­a­pies,’ Cor­zo told End­points News.

Af­ter she grad­u­at­ed from the Mass­a­chu­setts Col­lege of Phar­ma­cy and Health Sci­ences in the mid 1980s, she then went on to work with sev­er­al no­table biotechs, in­clud­ing Roche, Eli Lil­ly, Sanofi and Take­da be­fore join­ing bit.bio.

And while at Sanofi, 28 years in­to her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer, Cor­zo de­cid­ed to go to MIT and get her MBA in 2017, fin­ish­ing the pro­gram two years lat­er.

Cor­zo joined bit.bio on Nov. 1, the same week bit.bio an­nounced its $103 mil­lion Se­ries B raise — along­side some im­pres­sive names join­ing bit.bio’s board. The pitch re­volved around a gene en­gi­neer­ing ap­proach that en­ables the com­pa­ny to pro­duce any num­ber of batch­es of any hu­man cell for re­search, drug dis­cov­ery and ther­a­peu­tic pur­pos­es.

With the new cash, Cor­zo said there is a ton of op­por­tu­ni­ty to go in­to dif­fer­ent in­di­ca­tions with bit.bio’s cur­rent plat­form — so over the next few months, bit.bio will be work­ing on pri­or­i­tiz­ing where the com­pa­ny wants to go in its port­fo­lio.

In her first few weeks at bit.bio, Cor­zo has fo­cused on the ba­sics, as she called it, to get the ball rolling. Those ‘ba­sics’ are de­cent­ly ex­pan­sive, such as fig­ur­ing out bit.bio’s ‘key pri­or­i­ties,’ what they can de­liv­er in the next six to 24 months, and how bit.bio can ex­pand more in­to cell ther­a­py. Ac­cord­ing to Cor­zo, that’s just step one.

Num­ber two? Get­ting bit.bio to build out what it still needs. Bit.bio is work­ing on set­ting up a project man­age­ment of­fice, Cor­zo said — to ‘not on­ly de­fine the [bit.bio’s] strat­e­gy, but we can drill that down and ex­e­cute on the strat­e­gy we’re look­ing at.’ And with the biotech cur­rent­ly head­quar­tered in Cam­bridge in the UK, the biotech is al­so look­ing at if they need a foot­print in the US, should bit.bio de­cide to ex­pand.

And the third thing? Part­ner­ships. Cor­zo em­pha­sized how im­por­tant they are to small biotechs, but re­mained mum on any ne­go­ti­a­tions or talks with oth­er com­pa­nies to part­ner with bit.bio.

— Paul Schloess­er → Sarep­ta R&D chief Gilmore O’Neill is on his way out at the end of the month, paving the way for Louise Rodi­no-Kla­pac to slide in­to his job while re­main­ing CSO of the Duchenne biotech. In Feb­ru­ary, the FDA ap­proved Sarep­ta’s third DMD drug, Amondys 45, with­out much fan­fare. And af­ter a failed study of its gene ther­a­py SRP-9001-102, Sarep­ta de­clared it­self back in the game with safe­ty re­sults from 103 that it re­vealed in May to cat­a­pult the drug in­to Phase III. Rodi­no-Kla­pac was el­e­vat­ed to CSO in a De­cem­ber 2020 staff reshuf­fling that in­clud­ed Ian Es­tepan mov­ing to CFO. In oth­er Sarep­ta news, Mer­ck board mem­ber and Cal­tech bi­ol­o­gy and chem­istry pro­fes­sor Stephen Mayo has joined the board of di­rec­tors. → Mike Grey has jumped back in­to the fold as a CEO once again, step­ping in at San Fran­cis­co’s Spruce Bio­sciences on an in­ter­im ba­sis. Richard King, Spruce’s CEO since 2019, has an­nounced his re­tire­ment and will be a strate­gic ad­vi­sor un­til the end of the year. Grey, the chair­man at Spruce since 2017, chairs the board at two oth­er com­pa­nies he’s helmed, Mirum Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Re­neo Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. He’s al­so chair­man at Plex­i­um, which just named Astel­las’ Per­ci­val Bar­ret­to-Ko as CEO, and is on the board of di­rec­tors at Hori­zon.

That’s not all: Pamela Wedel, the for­mer SVP of clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions at an­oth­er biotech where Grey has been chief ex­ec­u­tive — Am­plyx — has been ap­point­ed VP of de­vel­op­ment op­er­a­tions. Spruce, part of the IPO avalanche of 2020, is con­tin­u­ing de­vel­op­ment of its drug for clas­sic con­gen­i­tal adren­al hy­per­pla­sia (CAH), tildac­er­font. → This week in ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss’ (non-Robert Califf di­vi­sion), Jakob Lind­berg re­turns as CEO of On­copep­tides af­ter lead­ing the com­pa­ny from 2011-20. Lind­berg takes over from Mar­ty Du­vall, whose die was cast last month when mul­ti­ple myelo­ma drug Pepax­to was yanked from the US mar­ket, dec­i­mat­ing the stock. Du­vall — for­mer­ly CEO of Toca­gen, the brain can­cer biotech that merged with Forte Bio­sciences — had on­ly been chief ex­ec­u­tive at On­copep­tides since Ju­ly 1, 2020, at which point Lind­berg slid in­to the CSO post. → When ad­u­canum­ab was ap­proved in June — cause for cel­e­bra­tion un­der nor­mal cir­cum­stances — the groundswell of con­tro­ver­sy kicked in al­most im­me­di­ate­ly. From in­dus­try an­a­lysts to FDA ad­comm mem­bers re­sign­ing in protest, the big biotech has faced strong head­winds from the get-go. Now cou­pled with a rocky roll­out, marked by a steep price tag and ma­jor in­sur­ers telling Bio­gen they may not even cov­er the drug, Al San­drock has de­cid­ed to re­tire as R&D chief be­gin­ning Dec. 31. Tim­ing is every­thing, so the say­ing goes, and the tim­ing of this sur­prise move on­ly adds to the shad­ow Aduhelm has cast. San­drock, a 23-year Bio­gen vet who had led R&D since Oc­to­ber 2019 and was CMO from 2012-20, hands the ba­ton to Priya Sing­hal — Bio­gen’s head of glob­al safe­ty and reg­u­la­to­ry sci­ences — on an in­ter­im ba­sis. And the push­back doesn’t ap­pear it will slow down any time soon: On Wednes­day, two days af­ter the San­drock an­nounce­ment, an EMA pan­el hand­ed Bio­gen a ‘neg­a­tive trend vote’ on its mar­ket­ing ap­pli­ca­tion in the re­gion.

→ Pfiz­er’s C-suite con­tin­ues to be in a state of flux with the re­tire­ment of CFO Frank D’Ame­lio af­ter 14 years on the job. D’Ame­lio is leav­ing Pfiz­er in ex­cep­tion­al­ly strong shape, as the phar­ma gi­ant and BioN­Tech ex­pect a $36 bil­lion wind­fall from the Covid-19 vac­cine and sales for its an­tivi­ral pill, Paxlovid, are pro­ject­ed to reach some­where be­tween $15 bil­lion and $25 bil­lion. D’Ame­lio, who’s al­so been EVP of glob­al sup­ply, will be re­placed in this ca­pac­i­ty by Mike Mc­Der­mott, whose ti­tle will be tweaked to chief glob­al sup­ply of­fi­cer start­ing Jan. 1. Mc­Der­mott, Pfiz­er’s pres­i­dent of glob­al sup­ply since 2019, be­gan his Pfiz­er ca­reer in 2003 as the head of Wyeth’s biotech man­u­fac­tur­ing op­er­a­tions in Pearl Riv­er, NY. D’Ame­lio joins CMO Mace Rothen­berg, CBO John Young and chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer Rod MacKen­zie as ma­jor ex­ecs who have left or are prepar­ing to leave Pfiz­er.

→ While on the hunt to prove the next big I/O tar­get, Im­mu­ni­tas’ chief deal­mak­er Aman­da Wag­n­er has tak­en over the reins from for­mer Akcea COO Jef­frey Gold­berg as CEO. Wag­n­er’s pro­mo­tion from her CBO post comes on the heels of the com­pa­ny’s re­cent close of a $58 mil­lion round. Wag­n­er’s start to her bio­phar­ma ca­reer be­gan at Con­cert Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, where she spent a decade as VP, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment & prod­uct strat­e­gy. From there, Wag­n­er moved to Al­tas Ven­ture as VP, cor­po­rate & busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and lat­er con­sult­ed for the Long­wood Fund in 2019. → It’s good to be Hei­di Ha­gen this week: Not on­ly has she signed on to Jeff Blue­stone’s cell ther­a­py play Sono­ma Bio­ther­a­peu­tics as chief tech­ni­cal of­fi­cer, she’s al­so tak­en a seat on the board of di­rec­tors at Ob­sid­i­an Ther­a­peu­tics. Ha­gen, who held the in­ter­im CEO role at Zio­pharm On­col­o­gy af­ter the sturm und drang of the ac­tivist at­tack, co-found­ed and was chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer for Vineti un­til she re­placed Lau­rence Coop­er in Feb­ru­ary. She’s al­so spent 10 years at Den­dreon and served as the Provenge mak­er’s SVP of op­er­a­tions. → With ex-Ra Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals CEO Doug Tre­co at the con­trols, Alchemab Ther­a­peu­tics has picked up Young Kwon as chief fi­nan­cial and op­er­at­ing of­fi­cer. Af­ter five years at Bio­gen, Kwon joined Mo­men­ta in 2011, ris­ing to CBO and lat­er chief fi­nan­cial and busi­ness of­fi­cer in ear­ly 2020. Then, J&J pur­chased Mo­men­ta last sum­mer, with Kwon play­ing a cru­cial role in the ne­go­ti­a­tions. In our Am­ber Tong’s play-by-play of the $6.5 bil­lion buy­out, Kwon and Mo­men­ta CEO Craig Wheel­er ‘had been try­ing cau­tious­ly to snatch a bet­ter deal from J&J. The of­fer price from the ini­tial pro­pos­al, they said, was in­suf­fi­cient — and ‘lim­it­ed high-pri­or­i­ty dili­gence’ might help them prove the case.’ You can re­fresh your mem­o­ry on the sale here. → Dar­rin Miles is de­camp­ing from Agios ‘to pur­sue a chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer role at a pri­vate biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny,’ and on Dec. 6, Jack­ie Fouse’s crew has lined up Richa Pod­dar to re­place Miles as chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer. An eight-year Roche/Genen­tech vet, Pod­dar has filled nu­mer­ous po­si­tions at Agios in the last five years, and in Au­gust she was pro­mot­ed to SVP, head of cor­po­rate strat­e­gy and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Back in De­cem­ber 2020, Agios com­plete­ly re­versed course from can­cer to fo­cus on mi­tapi­vat, a pyru­vate ki­nase R (PKR) ac­ti­va­tor for he­molyt­ic ane­mias that se­cured a Feb. 17, 2022 PDU­FA date. → One of Agios’ co-founders is fu­ture Dana-Far­ber fac­ul­ty mem­ber Lewis Cant­ley, who al­so co-found­ed Volas­tra, the New York can­cer biotech that added some ex­tra punch by an­nounc­ing a part­ner­ship with Mi­crosoft along­side a Se­ries A in April. This week Volas­tra has a huge batch of ap­point­ments as Scott Drut­man (head of trans­la­tion­al sci­ence) and Rachel Zolot Schwartz (head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial) get things rolling. Drut­man hails from Re­gen­eron, where he was a di­rec­tor in on­col­o­gy clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, while Schwartz spent six years at Pfiz­er in var­i­ous ca­pac­i­ties — as a se­nior di­rec­tor of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment in on­col­o­gy, she was a key cog in Pfiz­er’s 2019 ac­qui­si­tion of Ar­ray Bio­Phar­ma.

Else­where at Volas­tra, the ros­ter of sci­en­tif­ic ex­ecs un­der CSO Michael Su has been fi­nal­ized: Sarah Bet­tigole, VP, im­munol­o­gy; Derek Co­gan, VP, chem­istry; Christi­na Eng, VP, bi­ol­o­gy; Al Swis­ton, VP, head of da­ta sci­ence; and Ru­min Zhang, VP, head of bio­chem­istry. → Fre­quent Peer Re­view dweller Aa­van­tiBio has se­lect­ed Jen­ny Mar­lowe to be CSO as blue­bird bio los­es an­oth­er ex­ec fol­low­ing a split in­to two com­pa­nies that of­fi­cial­ly took ef­fect this month. Mar­lowe was blue­bird’s be­ta tha­lassemia pro­gram lead and VP, pre­clin­i­cal & trans­la­tion­al de­vel­op­ment af­ter a decade in in­ves­tiga­tive tox­i­col­o­gy and pre­clin­i­cal safe­ty with No­var­tis. Aa­van­tiBio CEO Bo Cum­bo has me­thod­i­cal­ly filled po­si­tions at the gene ther­a­py up­start that we’ve cov­ered since its Oc­to­ber 2020 launch, nam­ing a CFO, CMO, COO and sev­er­al oth­ers over the last eight months. → Teri Lox­am will jug­gle the dual roles of CFO and COO at im­mune-me­di­at­ed dis­ease biotech Ki­ra Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, which de­buted last No­vem­ber and is led by ex-Si­en­na Bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals CEO Fred­er­ick Bed­ding­field. Af­ter work­ing in in­vestor re­la­tions with Bris­tol My­ers Squibb and Mer­ck, Lox­am took the CFO job at SQZ Biotech­nolo­gies and had been there since 2019. Lox­am was al­so on our radar in Sep­tem­ber when Vax­Cyte added her to the board of di­rec­tors. → Res­cu­ing an old Am­gen drug out of moth­balls to tar­get mus­cle ag­ing, Bay Area an­ti-ag­ing up­start BioAge Labs has nabbed Dov Gold­stein as CFO and Ann Neale as chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer. We had Gold­stein in this space last year when he be­came chief fi­nan­cial and busi­ness of­fi­cer at In­dap­ta Ther­a­peu­tics — the for­mer Loxo On­col­o­gy CFO al­so re­sides on the board of di­rec­tors at Gain Ther­a­peu­tics, Neubase Ther­a­peu­tics and Coya Ther­a­peu­tics. Neale comes to BioAge af­ter a three-year stay at Prin­cip­ia, where she was SVP of de­vel­op­ment op­er­a­tions af­ter a light­ning-fast turn as Sci­ence 37’s SVP, clin­i­cal op­er­a­tions and pa­tient af­fairs.

→ Co-found­ed by George Church and de­vel­op­ing pro­tein ther­a­peu­tics from non-stan­dard amino acids (NSAAs), GRO Bio­sciences scored a Se­ries A ear­li­er this month with an as­sist from Leaps by Bay­er and this week has named Tad Stew­art CBO. Dur­ing more than 15 years at Mer­ri­mack, Stew­art was SVP of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and head of com­mer­cial, and since 2019 he had served as CBO of Ri­bon Ther­a­peu­tics. → As men­tioned along­side a $60 mil­lion Se­ries A round, Re­cludix Phar­ma has snagged Seagen vet Nan­cy Whit­ing as CEO. Whit­ing, a 15-year vet of Seagen, most re­cent­ly served as EVP of cor­po­rate strat­e­gy. Pri­or to that, Whit­ing was Seagen’s EVP of late-stage de­vel­op­ment, SVP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment and med­ical af­fairs and head of ex­per­i­men­tal med­i­cine. Dur­ing her time at Seagen, Whit­ing was in­stru­men­tal in the de­vel­op­ment of Ad­cetris for lym­phoma, Pad­cev for blad­der can­cer, Tukysa for breast can­cer and Tiv­dak for cer­vi
https://endpts.com/takeda-oncology-vet-drills-down-the-basics-at-cell-therapy-startup-sarepta-promotes-new-rd-chief/