Allison RosenthalLykos Therapeutics is on a journey to get the first MDMA-assisted PTSD therapy approved by the FDA, and the biotech has tapped two new leaders to complete the trip.
The additions of commercial chief Allison Rosenthal and VP of market access Coy Stout come at a pivotal moment for the California startup, which for years went by the name MAPS Public Benefit Corporation before rebranding as Lykos alongside a $100 million financing in January.
Days after Rosenthal and Stout’s arrival, the biotech said it would face a panel of independent experts before the FDA decides whether to greenlight its post-traumatic stress disorder capsules in combination with psychological intervention. The US regulator is expected to make an approval decision by mid-August.
Rosenthal joined from Otsuka, where she headed up US neuroscience sales and marketing. Prior to that, she was a general manager in the pharma company’s Canada unit for eight years and an 18-year veteran of Bristol Myers Squibb. Stout, meanwhile, was SVP of patient advocacy at Brii Biosciences and had also spent 17 years at Gilead.
— Kyle LaHucik
Alex Gorsky→ Alex Gorsky has signed on as general partner at Iconiq Growth, a “tech-focused direct investment effort” that’s part of San Francisco-based firm Iconiq Capital. Joaquin Duato replaced Gorsky as CEO of J&J on Jan. 3, 2022, and as chairman in January 2023. In a Q&A conducted by Iconiq Capital founding partner Divesh Makan on its website, Gorsky said he’s drawn to the “nexus of healthcare and technology.”
“I’ve been fortunate to be associated with some of the very best healthcare companies in the world. To pair that up with Iconiq Growth’s experience in technology and the community surrounding us is a pretty remarkable opportunity,” he said.
Gorsky still has board seats at Apple, IBM and JPMorgan Chase.
Michael Chen→ Launched by PureTech Health last month with $100 million from bigwigs like ARCH Venture Partners and Third Rock, Seaport Therapeutics has tapped Eric Green as COO and co-founder Michael Chen as CSO. Green spent nine years with Alnylam, where he was elevated to SVP, head of development programs, while Chen had been PureTech’s head of innovation before he founded Seaport with chairman Steve Paul, CEO Daphne Zohar, her PureTech successor Bharatt Chowrira and PureTech president Eric Elenko.
Seaport also appointed J&J alum Denice Torres to the board of directors. Torres was a board member at Paul’s previous CNS biotech, Karuna Therapeutics, until Bristol Myers Squibb’s $14 billion deal to buy the company was officially completed in March.
Frank Nestle→ As reported on Wednesday, Frank Nestle is stepping down as Sanofi’s CSO and global head of research. No departure date was given. Nestle arrived at the French pharma in 2016 as therapeutic area head for immunology and inflammation research, and was promoted to the dual roles four years later. Things look quite different at Sanofi now than they did at the beginning of 2023: Ex-R&D chief John Reed has since moved on to J&J; former EVP of specialty care Bill Sibold is now CEO of Madrigal Pharmaceuticals; and finance chief François-Xavier Roger replaced Jean-Baptiste Chasseloup de Chatillon on April 1.
→ Andrew Baum will head to Pfizer as chief strategy and innovation officer on June 3, the pharma giant said Monday. This will end Baum’s 13-year association with Citi, where he’s been head of global healthcare and managing director for equity research. Baum’s predecessor, Aamir Malik, took on the role of chief US commercial officer at Pfizer in January.
Stacy Lindborg→ Stacy Lindborg has succeeded Corinne Le Goff as CEO of Imunon, the New Jersey biotech once known as Celsion. Lindborg had co-CEO responsibilities at BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, which has battled extensively with the FDA over its experimental ALS treatment NurOwn. Before joining BrainStorm in 2020, Lindborg had a 15-year career with Eli Lilly and was promoted to VP, analytics and data science at the end of her eight years with Biogen. Le Goff recently left Imunon to become chief commercial officer of Viatris.
Thierry Chauche→ Sagimet Biosciences, which made its Nasdaq debut last summer alongside Apogee Therapeutics, has recruited Thierry Chauche as CFO. Chauche has M&A experience as finance chief of Provention Bio, the maker of the type 1 diabetes-delaying treatment Tzield that Sanofi picked up last year — time will tell if Sagimet becomes a similar buyout target. He’s the former head of strategic financial planning & analysis at Alexion and was involved in the NASH space as Intercept’s VP of FP&A. Sagimet’s lead program denifanstat is a fatty acid synthase (FASN) inhibitor for NASH, also referred to as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).
→ Wave Life Sciences has brought in Erik Ingelsson as CSO. Ingelsson had a four-year run at Wave’s RNA editing partner GSK, starting as SVP, human genetics and moving up to SVP, target discovery in January. Last September, Ryan Cross wrote about Wave and GSK’s alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency candidate WVE-006, which would be the first RNA editing therapy tested in humans.
Michael Harvey→ Congruence Therapeutics has made its second major hire in as many weeks by bringing in Michael Harvey as chief development officer. Harvey held the same title at Inversago Pharma, one of two cardiometabolic biotechs that Novo Nordisk acquired last August (Embark Biotech was the other). In late April, Congruence named ex-Schrödinger business development leader Frank Taffy as CBO.
Gary Li→ Australian radiopharma biotech AdvanCell has introduced two new execs, and both have worked in the burgeoning field for companies that have since been acquired: Chris Horvath (chief commercial and operating officer) had been EVP of commercial for Point Biopharma, which Eli Lilly purchased for $1.4 billion; and RayzeBio’s employee no. 3 Gary Li (chief strategy officer) was head of translational medicine & portfolio strategy until Bristol Myers made a $4.1 billion move for the Ken Song-led biotech.
Erin Quirk→ Terns Pharmaceuticals president and R&D chief Erin Quirk is headed for the exit, and Scott Harris will join the team as chief development officer on May 28. Harris was COO at Cleave Therapeutics when Terns chief Amy Burroughs held the top spot there. “I have worked with Scott for many years and value the deep and diverse expertise across all areas of drug development that he brings to the leadership team at Terns,” Burroughs said in a statement.
→ Nimbus Therapeutics has selected Pfizer and GSK vet Anita Scheuber as SVP, therapeutic area head, oncology. Following a short stay at Dragonfly Therapeutics, Scheuber led clinical development for Boston Pharmaceuticals and Trillium Therapeutics. Nimbus sold its TYK2 asset TAK-279 to Takeda in December 2022 and bagged $210 million nine months later from GV, Atlas Venture and other investors. Takeda said in September that TAK-279 cleared the bar in a Phase 2b trial for patients with psoriatic arthritis.
Allison Dillon→ After a yearlong hiatus, Tecentriq marketing vet Allison Dillon is back in the saddle, taking the CBO job at ALX Oncology. Dillon held multiple positions at Calithera Biosciences before it shut down last year, including SVP of commercial and portfolio strategy. Others have fled from CD47, but ALX is testing its CD47 blocker evorpacept in a slew of combination studies.
→ Peanut patch developer DBV Technologies has lined up Robert Pietrusko as chief regulatory officer, according to its Q1 report. The Millennium vet had the same title at Vor Bio for the last four years, and he was SVP, regulatory affairs & quality assurance for Voyager Therapeutics from 2014-20.
Melinda Keegan→ How do you spell Relief? N-E-W T-E-A-M. Swiss-based Relief Therapeutics has made numerous leadership changes, starting with Andrew Einhorn as CFO. Working part-time, Einhorn takes over for Jeremy Meinen and has handled CFO duties at RVL Pharmaceuticals, Edge Therapeutics and Oceana Therapeutics, among others. Meanwhile, Relief has promoted Giorgio Reiner to CSO and operations chief Paolo Galfetti has shifted to the CBO post. The rare disease biotech has also appointed Melinda Keegan as chief human resources officer after lending her HR expertise as a consultant, and it has named Vincenzo Gallo as head of legal and compliance. Reiner and Gallo both came from Relief’s subsidiary APR Applied Pharma Research in 2021.
Kathrin Meyer→ Ex-Aptinyx and Naurex CEO Norbert Riedel has been named chairman of the board at Lowell, MA-based gene therapy biotech Alcyone Therapeutics, which also installed Kathrin Meyer as CSO and head of R&D. Alcyone CEO PJ Anand met Meyer several years earlier while she worked at Nationwide Children’s Hospital as a principal investigator in the Center for Gene Therapy at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute. Anand talked to Nicole DeFeudis about Alcyone’s collaboration with Nationwide Children’s and its Rett syndrome candidate ACTX-101 when the company formally launched in June 2021.
→ Former CRISPR Therapeutics finance chief Marc Becker has joined radiopharma specialist Ratio Therapeutics as CFO and COO. Back in October, Becker took on the role of CFO, growth companies at Flagship Pioneering after a five-year stint as CFO of Concert Pharmaceuticals.
Dana Alexander→ Genzyme manufacturing vet Dana Alexander has made his way to Obsidian Therapeutics as chief technical officer. Alexander led technical operations at AlloVir and was Thermo Fisher’s VP of operations, viral vector services after the 2019 Brammer Bio deal. Obsidian just hired a new CFO and nabbed a $160.5 million Series C last month.
→ Robert Edfors will succeed co-founder Thomas Olin as CSO of Swedish biotech Kancera on Sept. 1, but Olin will still be a scientific advisor. Edfors comes to Kancera from Bayer, where he was global medical affairs physician, cardiovascular studies & pipeline. Kancera also promoted Johan Schultz to VP, R&D operations and enlisted Maria Sahlberg as VP, regulatory affairs & compliance. Sahlberg and Kancera CEO Peter Selin were colleagues at Sobi and Inceptua.
Topher Woelk→ Flagship’s Cellarity has welcomed Topher Woelk as its new head of platform. Woelk had served as head of translational genomics for Verge Genomics since September 2022 and is the former head of systems biology at Merck’s Exploratory Science Center in Cambridge, MA.
→ Celgene and Bristol Myers vet Yingyong Xu has taken the CMO job at Qihan Biotech. Xu is the former head of hematology for BMS China and had been on Samantha Du’s squad at Zai Lab since 2020: first as an executive medical director, and most recently as VP of clinical.
Julie O’Shaughnessy→ Julie O’Shaughnessy has been promoted to COO at Vivodyne, a Penn spinout that pulled together a $38 million seed round in November. The Amazon Web Services vet joined Vivodyne as VP of operations a few months ago after her tenure at Resilience, where she was senior director, head of digital strategy and business operations.
→ Cellectis has added Alexion CEO Marc Dunoyer and the AstraZeneca rare disease arm’s executive director of corporate development, Tyrell Rivers, to its board of directors. The cell and gene therapy developer said Monday that AstraZeneca now owns 44% of its share capital.
Armon Sharei→ Former SQZ Biotechnologies chief Armon Sharei leads a list of new board members at Milan-based Genenta Science. Longtime GSK vet John Cantello, Lauren Chung and Todd Wider have also joined chairman and CEO Pierluigi Paracchi on the board.
→ Boulder, CO-based muscle disease biotech Edgewise Therapeutics has added ex-Syndax Pharmaceuticals CEO Arlene Morris to the board of directors. Morris has been CEO of Willow Advisors ever since she left Syndax in 2015 and she has board seats at Cogent Biosciences, Palatin Technologies, TC BioPharm and Viridian Therapeutics.