Welcome to this week's Chutes and Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Angus Liu (email), and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Influential Celgene chairman Bob Hugin might run for U.S. Senate seat
Celgene
Executive Chairman Bob Hugin will soon retire.
The “executive” in Bog Hugin’s Celgene title says it all—the biopharma veteran still wielded significant power at the company, even after he handed the CEO hat to Mark Alles in 2016. Now, he's leaving the big biotech he had spent 19 years with. Celgene thrived during his tenure. Headcount jumped from 2,500 in 2010 to 7,500 today, and cancer star med Revlimid helped the company achieve double-digit revenue growth. Recent reports hinted that Hugin might redirect his career into politics, or to be specific, a New Jersey U.S. Senate seat opening up in November. Word has it that he’s the frontrunner in a list floated by GOP leaders. FiercePharma
Voyager founder and CEO to step aside to become executive science adviser
Voyager Therapeutics
President and CEO Steven Paul, M.D., will step down.
Voyager Therapeutics’ founder Steven Paul, M.D., will transition from president and CEO to executive science adviser, where he’ll focus on preclinical discovery research and portfolio development. Neither the formal reason for the change nor a replacement was stated, but the gene therapy biotech said it was not related to Sanofi’s recent decision to walk away from a Parkinson’s program. Paul said at the time the parting of ways was the result of a disagreement between the two companies over the med’s U.S. rights. A neuroscientist, Paul had previously spent 17 years at Eli Lilly and was initially president of R&D at Voyager’s inception. FierceBiotech
Boehringer Ingelheim U.S. chief to retire, successor named
Boehringer Ingelheim
Wolfgang Baiker, M.D., Ph.D., was named U.S. president and CEO.
Paul Fonteyne, Boehringer Ingelheim’s U.S. president and CEO since 2012, will retire at the end of 2018. During his tenure, he oversaw the U.S. launch of Spiriva, the company’s bestselling product. Wolfgang Baiker, M.D., Ph.D., will succeed him on Mar. 1, while Fonteyne focuses on the U.S. animal health business for the rest of the year following the acquisition of Merial from Sanofi last year. Baiker joined BI in 1989 and is currently SVP of human pharma supply & global quality and head of the biopharma business unit. He had previously worked in the U.S. for seven years within clinical R&D. Release
> Apotex CEO Jeremy Desai resigned amid a Teva lawsuit and founder Barry Sherman's murder investigation. FiercePharma
> Peter Goldschmidt, currently head of Sandoz North America, will replace Claudio Albrecht to become Stada's fifth CEO in about two years. Release
> Life science investment shop Flagship Pioneering kept adding high-profile industry veterans to its leadership team: Rob Rosiello, a McKinsey & Co. senior partner emeritus, joined as executive partner and COO; and Jason Pontin, recently CEO, editor-in-chief and publisher of MIT Technology Review, came on board as senior partner and chief editor. Release
> Longtime Alexion CMO Camille Bedrosian, M.D., jumped ship to rare disease firm Ultragenyx as EVP and CMO. Release
> In a settlement Outcome Health reached with its angry investors, co-founders Rishi Shah and Shradha Agarwal will step away from their current roles as CEO and president, respectively. FiercePharmaMarketing
> Bavarian Nordic announced that EVP and CFO Ole Larsen will leave the company to pursue new opportunities once a successor has been identified. Release
> Jean-Marie Cuillerot, M.D., who helped bring Yervoy through the clinic at Bristol-Myers Squibb, became Dragonfly Therapeutics’ CMO. Release
> Shortly after naming its first global chief digital officer, McCann Health appointed Linda Szyper, formerly Circassia's CCO and president of U.S. operations, as COO, and promoted June Laffey to EVP and chief creative officer at McCann Health New York. FiercePharmaMarketing
> Ahmed Elkashef, M.D., who once served as a clinical trials branch chief at the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, joined Insys Therapeutics as VP of clinical development, and Carol Summersgill was named VP of human resources. Release
> After naming Karl Deonanan as CFO a few days ago, Synteract appointed Jack Shannon, a recent Chiltern executive, as its CCO. Release
> Alex Gu was promoted to SVP and president of Medtronic's Greater China Region, succeeding Chris Lee, who was recently promoted to head of Asia Pacific. Release
> British CRO Domainex hired recent Charles River executive Kevin Doyle as head of chemistry. Release
> Vibrent Health, which has an SaaS machine learning platform for precision medicine efforts, named James C. Wade, M.D., as chief medical informatics officer. Release
> Ralf Otto, a recent partner at McKinsey & Co., and previously an executive in manufacturing at Boehringer Ingelheim, joined German CDMO Rentschler Biopharma as COO. Release
> CDMO Almac promoted Stefan Mix, Ph.D., to the position of head of biocatalysis. Release
> Israeli drug delivery system developer Intec Pharma named R. Michael Gendreau, M.D., Ph.D., its CMO. Release
> Ritter Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on modulating the human gut microbiome to treat gastrointestinal diseases, appointed Diane J. Plotkin, Ph.D., as VP of clinical development. Release
> Irish medtech company Neuromod recruited neurostimulation expert Hubert Lim, Ph.D., as CSO. Release
> Aerie Pharmaceuticals brought on Tad Heitmann as head of communications. Release