Sienna Biopharmaceuticals

Feb 10, 2023

Bill An­der­son → You know how we told you last week that we’d keep our eyes peeled for where ex-Roche Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals CEO Bill An­der­son turns up next? Well, he gave us an an­swer in a big way. An­der­son will be the CEO at Bay­er start­ing April 1, the Ger­man phar­ma said Wednes­day. Un­like Roche, Mer­ck, J&J and the CEO tran­si­tion that fol­lows, Bay­er chose not to go in-house for Wern­er Bau­mann’s re­place­ment. In­vestors have been grum­bling about the com­pa­ny’s stock per­for­mance, so much so that ac­tivist in­vestor Jeff Ubben ral­lied the troops to find some­one out­side the com­pa­ny to take con­trol. In the end, the in­vestors won. Shares $BAYRY jumped 6% when news cir­cu­lat­ed about An­der­son’s hir­ing. Bau­mann’s re­tire­ment af­ter 35 years at Bay­er, sev­en of those as CEO, marks an­oth­er ma­jor change in its lead­er­ship. Mar­i­anne De Backer, Bay­er’s wheel­er-deal­er who en­gi­neered the ac­qui­si­tions of AskBio and Vi­vid­ion, will re­place George Scan­gos as CEO of Vir Biotech­nol­o­gy on April 3. Ken­ji Ya­sukawa → Astel­las will do some shift­ing of its own, start­ing at the top with the April 1 de­par­ture of Ken­ji Ya­sukawa, the pres­i­dent and CEO since 2018. Chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer Nao­ki Oka­mu­ra will take the helm while EVP of cor­po­rate strat­e­gy Adam Pear­son will be el­e­vat­ed to Oka­mu­ra’s old post. It doesn’t stop there: Chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer Yukio Mat­sui will al­so re­tire at the same time as Ya­sukawa, and Claus Ziel­er — Astel­las’ pres­i­dent, es­tab­lished mar­kets com­mer­cial — is set to take Mat­sui’s place. The ex­ten­sive C-suite shake­up comes as Astel­las says a patent cliff and de­clin­ing rev­enue is be­hind it, and the com­pa­ny is ready to go for “ag­gres­sive” growth. It al­so fol­lows the re­tire­ment of CMO Bern­hardt Zei­her, who spoke with Am­ber Tong in Au­gust 2022 about the gene ther­a­py AT132 for X-linked my­otubu­lar my­opa­thy that Astel­las picked up from Au­dentes — and is linked to mul­ti­ple pa­tient deaths that shook the en­tire gene ther­a­py land­scape. Since Tadaa­ki Taniguchi suc­ceed­ed Zei­her on Oct. 1, Astel­las scooped up two gene ther­a­py pro­grams from strug­gling Taysha and saw a clin­i­cal hold get lift­ed for its Pompe dis­ease gene ther­a­py can­di­date AT845. Scott My­ers → Pre­vi­ous­ly known as mi­Ra­gen, Virid­i­an Ther­a­peu­tics drew in some se­ri­ous coin once it trot­ted out Phase I/II da­ta for its thy­roid eye dis­ease drug VRDN-001 in Au­gust 2022. But af­ter that $270 mil­lion of­fer­ing, Virid­i­an will have a dif­fer­ent con­duc­tor lead­ing the way, with Jonathan Vi­o­lin hand­ing the or­ches­tra to new pres­i­dent and CEO Scott My­ers. You may re­mem­ber My­ers from his days as CEO of AM­AG Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, the Mak­e­na mak­er that was sold to Co­vis Phar­ma back in 2020. He’s al­so been chief ex­ec­u­tive at Rainier Ther­a­peu­tics and Cas­ca­di­an Ther­a­peu­tics. Akin Ak­inc → Every­thing’s com­ing up Al­ny­lam at su­per-stealthy Feng Zhang up­start Aera Ther­a­peu­tics, which has tapped Akin Ak­inc as CEO and John Maraganore as chair­man, Busi­ness In­sid­er re­ports . Ak­inc takes the helm at the gene edit­ing biotech af­ter end­ing his 19 years at the RNAi ti­tan in Sep­tem­ber 2022 as head of on­col­o­gy. Maraganore has pop­u­lat­ed Peer Re­view with an end­less ar­ray of board ap­point­ments and ad­vi­so­ry roles ever since he stepped down from the top spot at Al­ny­lam. Iya Khalil → A spokesper­son for Mer­ck tells End­points News that Iya Khalil will join the phar­ma gi­ant on Feb. 13 as VP and head of da­ta, AI & genome sci­ences. In a LinkedIn post, Khalil bid farewell to No­var­tis, where she was glob­al head of the AI in­no­va­tion lab­o­ra­to­ry since May 2020. “I want to thank No­var­tis and all of my col­leagues for the unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to launch the AI lab and NI­BR’s com­mit­ment to the con­tin­ued ef­forts of the AI team un­der the ex­cep­tion­al lead­er­ship of Fiona Mar­shall,” she wrote. Turn­about is fair play here: No­var­tis plucked Mar­shall from Mer­ck to re­place Jay Brad­ner as pres­i­dent of NI­BR last fall. Mer­ck has been div­ing deep­er in­to AI through re­cent part­ner­ships with Ab­sci, BigHat Bio­sciences and Saa­ma. Kathy High → STAT writer (and friend of Peer Re­view) Ja­son Mast re­vealed Kathy High’s de­par­ture from AAV gene ther­a­py de­vel­op­er AskBio this week. High co-found­ed Spark Ther­a­peu­tics and ce­ment­ed her lega­cy in the field with her work on the reti­nal dis­ease drug Lux­tur­na, the first gene ther­a­py to re­ceive FDA ap­proval. Roche ponied up $4.3 bil­lion for Spark, and High then bolt­ed for AskBio in Jan­u­ary 2021, be­com­ing the Bay­er sub’s pres­i­dent of ther­a­peu­tics. STAT in­di­cates that High is on sab­bat­i­cal at Rock­e­feller Uni­ver­si­ty. Dan­nielle Ap­pel­hans → What lit­tle re­mains of Flag­ship’s Ru­bius is still scram­bling to de­ter­mine next steps, and while its strate­gic re­view rolls on, CEO Dan­nielle Ap­pel­hans’ tenure has been ex­tend­ed from Jan. 31 to “no lat­er than March 3,” an SEC fil­ing states . Mean­while, it’s Lau­rence Tur­ka’s turn to leave Ru­bius af­ter three years as CSO and head of re­search and trans­la­tion­al med­i­cine. Fi­nal­ly, ex-No­var­tis head of on­col­o­gy Su­sanne Schaf­fert, Fran­cis Cuss and Michael Rosen­blatt have all re­signed from the board of di­rec­tors. Be­hzad Khara­bi → TCR biotech T-knife Ther­a­peu­tics made some noise in 2021 with $110 mil­lion in Se­ries B fi­nanc­ing and sev­er­al key hires, in­clud­ing COO Megan Baier­lein and CSO Peg­gy Sotiropoulou. This week T-knife is back with Be­hzad Khara­bi as CMO. Khara­bi left J&J for Gilead’s Kite in 2018 and rose to glob­al pro­gram clin­i­cal lead for Tecar­tus, the CAR-T ther­a­py that was first ap­proved in the sum­mer of 2020 for re­lapsed or re­frac­to­ry man­tle cell lym­phoma. Tecar­tus then scored an­oth­er FDA nod a year lat­er for adults with re­lapsed or re­frac­to­ry B-cell pre­cur­sor acute lym­phoblas­tic leukemia. Nico­la Hef­fron → An SEC fil­ing shows that 2sev­en­ty bio COO Nico­la Hef­fron will pack her bags on March 10. No spe­cif­ic rea­son was giv­en oth­er than the stan­dard line that it wasn’t “due to any dis­agree­ment with the Com­pa­ny on any mat­ter.” A Cel­gene and Shire vet, Hef­fron jumped over to blue­bird bio’s can­cer spin­out when Nick Leschly split blue­bird in­to the two sep­a­rate com­pa­nies in 2021. She start­ed at blue­bird in Jan­u­ary 2020 as SVP, Eu­rope. Lau­ra Walk­er → With apolo­gies to Boz Scaggs, the in­abil­i­ty of Ada­gio Ther­a­peu­tics’ Covid-19 an­ti­body to put up a de­fense against the Omi­cron vari­ant sig­naled a break­down dead ahead for the Till­man Gern­gross biotech. Gern­gross gave up his spot as CEO, the com­pa­ny re­brand­ed as In­vivyd, lay­offs en­sued , and mul­ti­ple ex­ecs walked out the door. The lat­est is CSO Lau­ra Walk­er, who co-found­ed Ada­gio and has al­so worked at Adimab (an­oth­er Gern­gross joint). In­ter­im head of dis­cov­ery and pre­clin­i­cal Lukas Dillinger will han­dle CSO du­ties un­til In­vivyd finds her re­place­ment. An­ders Ull­man → On­ly a year in­to his tenure as head of R&D and med­ical af­fairs and CMO at So­bi, An­ders Ull­man has de­cid­ed to re­tire on April 1. Tony Hoos, who will take over for the 67-year-old Ull­man, has led the glob­al rare dis­ease busi­ness unit at GSK and is the for­mer head of med­ical in Eu­rope for Am­gen. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Hoos spent a year as med­ical chief of Flag­ship’s Va­lo Health. Ull­man was a board mem­ber at So­bi be­fore he re­placed Ravi Rao, the cur­rent CMO with Ox­ford Bio­med­ica and Sit­ryx. Laeti­tia Roux­el → On April 1, Laeti­tia Roux­el will be­come the CFO of Ger­man-based Evotec, which boasts a slew of dis­cov­ery part­ner­ships from a who’s who in the phar­ma world — Eli Lil­ly, Boehringer In­gel­heim, No­vo Nordisk and Bris­tol My­ers Squibb among them. An 11-year Pfiz­er vet, Roux­el has been di­vi­sion­al fi­nance chief for beau­ty and fra­grance com­pa­ny Co­ty and glob­al CFO of Dutch plas­tic pipe provider Wavin. En­no Spill­ner, Evotec’s CFO since 2016, is leav­ing at the end of next month when his con­tract runs out. Tracey Sac­co → Schol­ar Rock’s first-year CEO and ex-Ac­celeron R&D chief Jay Back­strom has lined up a fa­mil­iar face to take on the role of chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer. Tracey Sac­co joined Ac­celeron in 2012 as se­nior di­rec­tor, cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment and would lat­er work on the prod­uct launch of the Bris­tol My­ers-part­nered drug Re­blozyl. She was SVP, glob­al strate­gic mar­ket­ing when Mer­ck bought the biotech for $11.5 bil­lion in the fall of 2021. Schol­ar Rock hasn’t evad­ed the on­slaught of lay­offs in the in­dus­try, trim­ming 25% of its staff in May 2022. Gopi Shankar → Friedre­ich’s atax­ia spe­cial­ist Lari­mar Ther­a­peu­tics has ap­point­ed Gopi Shankar as chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer. Shankar just had a 12-year run at J&J and had been Janssen’s VP and glob­al head, bi­o­log­ics de­vel­op­ment sci­ences since 2018. Lari­mar wait­ed out a clin­i­cal hold for its Friedre­ich’s atax­ia can­di­date CTI-1601 that last­ed more than a year un­til it was lift­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2022 . How­ev­er, a par­tial hold on the drug is still in place. → An­oth­er hire has bub­bled up at T cell en­gager biotech La­va Ther­a­peu­tics, with Charles Mor­ris tak­ing the CMO reins from Ben­jamin Wino­grad. Mor­ris re­cent­ly held the same ti­tle at Celyad On­col­o­gy, a biotech hang­ing on by its fin­ger­nails af­ter cut­ting the cord on de­vel­op­ment of its al­lo­gene­ic BC­MA CAR-T, CYAD-211. He al­so spent two years as med­ical chief of Ra­dius Health, the now-pri­vate com­pa­ny ac­quired by Gur­net Point Cap­i­tal and Jim Mom­tazee’s Pa­tient Square Cap­i­tal last sum­mer. Toshiya Nishi → Je­re­my Levin’s Ovid is bring­ing in a new duo with the hir­ing of Manoj Mal­ho­tra as CMO and Toshiya Nishi as epilep­sy re­search head. Mal­ho­tra, who’s known Levin for some time, joins the team from Ei­sai’s neu­rol­o­gy busi­ness group and has pri­or stints at Mallinck­rodt, No­var­tis and Take­da un­der his belt. Mean­while, Nishi comes to the com­pa­ny from Take­da, where he co-in­vent­ed soti­cle­stat. In his new role, Nishi will be fo­cused on pre­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, specif­i­cal­ly KCC2. John Kauh → Go­ing af­ter STAT3 with its lead as­set TTI-101, Hous­ton’s Tvar­di Ther­a­peu­tics has re­cruit­ed John Kauh as CMO. As VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Hutchmed, Kauh worked on su­r­u­fa­tinib, a drug that got dinged with a CRL last year as part of the FDA’s broad­er clam­p­down on Chi­na-on­ly tri­al da­ta. Tvar­di, co-found­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas MD An­der­son Can­cer Cen­ter’s Ron De­Pin­ho, last raised cash in June 2021 with a $74 mil­lion Se­ries B . Roger Sid­hu → New York can­cer biotech Tread­well Ther­a­peu­tics has wel­comed Roger Sid­hu as CMO. Sid­hu pre­vi­ous­ly showed up in Peer Re­view when he left Roivant in Sep­tem­ber 2021 to be­come med­ical chief at Brook­lyn Im­munoTher­a­peu­tics, now named Eter­na Ther­a­peu­tics. Sid­hu was VP of clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment at Kite be­fore land­ing the CMO and head of R&D posts at Roivant in 2020. → David Gaiero has been pro­mot­ed to CFO of Cyteir Ther­a­peu­tics, which laid off 70% of its staff last month and is down to 15 em­ploy­ees who will re­dou­ble the Lex­ing­ton, MA biotech’s ef­forts in ovar­i­an can­cer with a com­bo ther­a­py of CYT-0851 and capecitabine. Gaiero was named VP of fi­nance at Cyteir in De­cem­ber 2020 af­ter three years as VP, cor­po­rate con­troller and in­ter­im CFO at Wave Life Sci­ences. Robert McRae → Back in Sep­tem­ber, Pal­isade Bio down­sized its team of 13 by 20% to keep push­ing for­ward with de­vel­op­ment of its lead can­di­date. Now, the Carls­bad, CA-based com­pa­ny is pro­mot­ing Robert McRae to the po­si­tion of COO. McRae has been with the com­pa­ny since De­cem­ber 2021, hav­ing joined as SVP, op­er­a­tions and strate­gic de­vel­op­ment. Pri­or to Pal­isade, McRae was with Virac­ta Ther­a­peu­tics as VP, op­er­a­tions & strate­gic al­liances. In ad­di­tion to McRae’s pro­mo­tion, in­ter­im CEO JD Fin­ley is grab­bing a seat on the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors. JP Gabriel → JP Gabriel has been named chief tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer at RNAi play­er Si­lence Ther­a­peu­tics af­ter the re­tire­ment of SVP, tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions and Fer­ring vet Jør­gen Wit­ten­dorff. Gabriel has held po­si­tions in man­u­fac­tur­ing and qual­i­ty at Roche/Genen­tech, Ul­tragenyx and most re­cent­ly, Ocu­gen, where he was SVP, tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions. Al­most a year ago, Craig Tooman suc­ceed­ed Mark Rothera as Si­lence’s CEO in a shake­up that in­volved the pro­mo­tion of Rhon­da Hel­lums to Tooman’s old CFO job. Rothera now runs the show at Virac­ta Ther­a­peu­tics. → Shang­hai Mi­cuRx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal has pulled in Reg­is Vilchez as CMO of its Amer­i­can sub­sidiary, Mi­cuRx Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. Vilchez is bring­ing with him ex­pe­ri­ence from his time spent at Boehringer In­gel­heim, Mer­ck, Roche, Ab­bott/Ab­b­Vie and Mallinck­rodt. Dur­ing his ca­reer, Vilchez has con­tributed to the glob­al de­vel­op­ment of a num­ber of ther­a­pies, in­clud­ing Vic­trelis, Ocali­va and Strat­a­Graft. Di­di­er Vin­gadas­sa­lom → Di­di­er Vin­gadas­sa­lom gets his own ca­den­za in this por­tion of Peer Re­view as se­nior di­rec­tor, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment at Con­cer­to Bio­sciences. Vin­gadas­sa­lom is a Sanofi alum who comes from SQZ Biotech­nolo­gies, where he was se­nior di­rec­tor, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and head of al­liance man­age­ment. Co-found­ed by CEO Cheri Ack­er­man and CSO Jared Ke­he — both trained pi­anists — mi­crobe-fo­cused Con­cer­to hit the stage three months ago with $23 mil­lion in Se­ries A fund­ing . → Blue Wa­ter Vac­cines, which back in Au­gust ditched SPAC merg­er plans ,  has reeled in Frank Jaeger as SVP of mar­ket­ing and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment. Jaeger hails from Clarus Ther­a­peu­tics, where he was SVP and CCO. Be­fore that, Jaeger was with the team at Ab­b­Vie, help­ing launch An­dro­Gel from its men’s health busi­ness unit. Biren Amin → Biren Amin has joined the board of di­rec­tors at Imm­PACT Bio, a CAR-T out­fit chaired by ex-Gos­samer Bio CEO Sheila Gu­jrathi. Since leav­ing Jef­feries in 2021, Amin has been fi­nance chief at Im­muneer­ing and now tack­les the roles of CFO and chief strat­e­gy of­fi­cer for Pyra­mid Bio­sciences. → Ex-Blue­print Med­i­cines chief Jeff Al­bers has been named chair­man of the board at MO­MA Ther­a­peu­tics, a Third Rock biotech that raised $150 mil­lion in a Se­ries B round last May. Al­bers, who’s still chair­man at Blue­print, start­ed a gig at At­las Ven­ture last month as a ven­ture part­ner. Bar­bara Dun­can → In its first Peer Re­view ap­pear­ance since buy­ing Antares Phar­ma for just shy of $1 bil­lion last April, Halozyme has elect­ed Bar­bara Dun­can to the board of di­rec­tors. Dun­can was CFO of In­ter­cept from 2009-16 and chairs the board at Fu­sion Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. → Tout­ing a Phase II win with the ex-Am­gen drug obice­trapib last month, NewAms­ter­dam Phar­ma has elect­ed John Smither to the board of di­rec­tors. Smither is an Am­gen vet whose past CFO ap­point­ments in­clude Si­en­na Bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals (two sep­a­rate stints), Kite (in­ter­im) and Ar­cutis. Mar­cel­la Rud­dy → Sam Truex’s Up­stream Bio flowed on­to our radar with a $200 mil­lion de­but last June, and this week the in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­ease biotech has re­served space for Tec­ton­ic Ther­a­peu­tic CMO Mar­cel­la Rud­dy on the board of di­rec­tors. To con­clude her five years at Re­gen­eron, Rud­dy was VP, clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment for in­flam­ma­tion and im­munol­o­gy from 2018-21. → Way­point Hold­ings chair­man and CEO Thomas Di­etz is head­ed to the board of di­rec­tors at RNA play­er Nut­crack­er Ther­a­peu­tics. Di­etz, the chair­man of Eiger Bio­Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, owns board seats at Paratek Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Leap Ther­a­peu­tics. Lin Guey → Caris­ma Ther­a­peu­tics, the com­pa­ny that took the spot­light with its CAR-M ther­a­py , is bring­ing in some fire­pow­er from one of its al­lies to its team. Mod­er­na’s Lin Guey, who over­sees the part­ner­ship be­tween the two com­pa­nies, will be join­ing Caris­ma’s sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board. Dur­ing her ca­reer, Guey has worked at Tessera, Xilio, Shire and Pfiz­er. → Repli­gen has named ex-Mil­li­pore CEO Mar­tin Madaus to its board of di­rec­tors. Madaus is a se­nior op­er­at­ing ex­ec­u­tive at The Car­lyle Group and the for­mer North Amer­i­ca pres­i­dent and CEO of Roche Di­ag­nos­tics. → The chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer of Evo­lus, Crys­tal Muilen­burg, is hop­ping on­to the board of di­rec­tors at El­e­vai Labs. While at Evo­lus, Muilen­burg has helped lead the re-launch of Jeu­veau. Pri­or to Evo­lus, Muilen­burg was with Si­en­na Bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and had a decade-long stint at Al­ler­gan. → Ac­ti­cor Biotech, which re­cent­ly re­vised its pipeline to post­pone a Phase II study, has pulled out a seat on its board of di­rec­tors for Pa­tri­cia Zil­liox — who will be re­plac­ing Corinne Le Goff. Zil­liox serves as pres­i­dent and CEO of Eye­ven­sys and has held roles at Al­con Lab­o­ra­to­ries and the Clin­i­cal Re­search In­sti­tute. → Boston-based An­o­dyne Nan­otech, deal­ing with mi­cronee­dle tech, has brought on Jeff Mihm to its board of di­rec­tors. Mihm for­mer­ly served as CEO of Noven Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. AUTHORS Beth Snyder Bulik Senior Editor Menopause is about to have a big moment — at the Super Bowl. Astellas is taking its hot flashes and night sweats awareness campaign to Sunday’s broadcast. The 30-second Astellas commercial running during the game centers on the technical term, vasomotor symptoms or VMS, for those common menopause signals. In the ad, actress Carmella Riley is a reporter on the street stopping women to ask them “one burning question,” which is: “What is VMS?” Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription Unlock this story instantly and join 159,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free. SIGN UP Remember how good 2020 was for biotech venture numbers? Now hold that thought. Diving into the numbers for life science venture investors last year, DealForma’s Chris Dokomajilar tracked a dramatic downturn in 2022, setting the stage for a new normal that puts healthcare back at levels registered in 2019 and 2020. But biopharma was singled out for some rough handling once you break them out of the pack. In his annual look at the top 100 investors in biotech, Dokomajilar found that close to $20 billion of the $51 billion in life sciences investments tracked last year were directed at platforms and therapeutics. Premium subscription required Jared Whitlock Features Editor Don Kyle spent more than 20 years working for Purdue Pharma, right through the US opioid epidemic that led to the company’s rise and eventual infamy. But contrary to Purdue’s focus on OxyContin, Kyle was researching non-opioid painkillers — that is, until the company shelved his research. As the company’s legal troubles mounted, Kyle found an unlikely way to reboot the project. In 2019, he took his work to an Oklahoma State University center that’s slated to receive more than two-thirds of the state’s $272 million settlement with Purdue over claims that the drugmaker’s behavior ignited the epidemic of opioid use and abuse. Premium subscription required Beth Snyder Bulik Senior Editor Crooked vegetables served as effective props in Endo Pharmaceuticals’ first awareness campaign for Peyronie’s disease and unnatural penile curvature, but now it’s taking a different tack. Its new “Man With a Plan” awareness campaign debuted this week and shows men searching the internet for answers. Men in darkened rooms, faces illuminated by a computer or phone screen, type into search boxes with queries such as: “What causes a curve down there?” and “Will it get worse?” The TV ad is running along with digital, social media, print and in-office promotions in the newly launched “Plan” campaign. Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription Unlock this story instantly and join 159,200+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free. SIGN UP LOG IN