Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Kyle LaHucik, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Merck's Vaxneuvance leader leaves for Affinivax to develop rival vaccine
Affinivax
Kara Bickham, M.D., joined Affinivax as chief medical officer.
In her new role, Bickham will oversee development of a 24-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. The asset could challenge Merck's Vaxneuvance and Pfizer's Prevnar for a blockbuster market. Bickham led clinical development at Vaxneuvance, so Affinivax is hoping she'll help bring a rival to market, too. The FDA gave the Merck drug the green light just last month. Affinivax's jab, in partnership with Astellas, has garnered phase 2 data the companies are using to prepare for registrational clinical trials. Fierce Biotech
Epizyme's CEO hands keys to former chief commercial officer of Tesaro, now part of GSK
Epizyme
Grant Bogle will be the new CEO of Epizyme.
Bogle joins the biopharma, which has two approvals for its cancer drug Tazverik, from Tesaro. He was chief commercial officer for the company, now part of GlaxoSmithKline. There, he helped lead the launch of three products, including Zejula, and led the creation of Tesaro's U.S. commercial unit. Bogle has been on Epizyme's board since 2019.
Bogle takes the baton from Robert Bazemore, who is stepping down to let Epizyme move into its "next phase of growth." Fierce Biotech
BD picks up 22-year Johnson & Johnson vet as new chief financial officer
BD
Christopher DelOrefice will join BD as chief financial officer Sept.6.
The longtime Johnson & Johnson veteran will also be executive vice president of BD, which increased third fiscal quarter revenues 22% year over year to $4.9 billion. He will work with outgoing CFO Christopher Reidy over the coming months to also manage the technology and global services business division. DelOrefice was most recently CFO of hospital medical devices in North America for J&J and also vice president of investor relations. Fierce Medtech
> Erik Johnson will be chief operating officer of miR Scientific. He joins the cancer detection company from Bristol Myers Squibb, where he was head of worldwide commercial for immuno-oncology in melanoma and genitourinary. Fierce Biotech
> Clinical-stage biotech PureTech Health named Julie Krop, M.D., as chief medical officer. Krop held the same role at gene therapy biotech Freeline Therapeutics and was CMO at AMAG Pharmaceuticals prior to that, where she oversaw three FDA approvals. Fierce Biotech
> Karl Voss, Ph.D., is now vice president of life sciences research and development for Nautilus Biotechnology. Voss joins the single-molecule protein analysis company from Pacific Biosciences, where he was vice president of consumables research and development. Release
> Agenus Bio's President and Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Buell, Ph.D., was named CEO of subsidiary MiNK Therapeutics, which filed for an initial public offering in late July. Release
> Cancer biopharma NuCana named Jeffrey D. Bloss, M.D., its chief medical officer. Prior to NuCana, Bloss held the same role at Tarveda Therapeutics. Release
> Hamid Khoja, Ph.D., joins FibroBiologics as chief scientific officer. He comes from Covaris, where he was a principal scientist, and had previously been a scientist at Genomic Solutions, Eli Lilly and Chiron Pharmaceuticals. Release
> Ronald R. Cobb, Ph.D., will be head of science and discovery at Blue Water Vaccines. Cobb joins the influenza vaccine developer from Ology Biosciences, where he served as chief scientific officer. Release
> LQT Therapeutics hired Chief Development Officer Debra Odink, Ph.D., from SiteOne Therapeutics, and named Philip Sager as chief medical officer after various roles at Anthera, Gilead and AstraZeneca. The leadership additions come in conjunction with a $19 million series A. Fierce Biotech
> Kelly Londy was named CEO of Nuvo Group, maker of an FDA-approved prescription-initiated remote pregnancy monitoring platform, as founding CEO Oren Oz transitions to chief innovation officer. Londy was most recently CEO of medical device company Innoblative Designs. Release
> AltruBio named Jeroen Grasman as chief financial officer. Grasman joins the immunological diseases biotech from PACT Pharma, where he led the finance and operations team of the clinical-stage cell therapy company. Release
> Clinical surveillance company VigiLanz hired L. Hayley Burgess as chief clinical officer. Burgess joins from HCA Healthcare, where she was assistant vice president of pharmacy services. Release
> Sutro Biopharma named Jane Chung its first chief commercial officer. Chung joined the cancer and autoimmune biotech from AstraZeneca, where she was president of the Big Pharma's Canada unit. Release
> Holly Schachner, M.D., joined Double Rainbow Biosciences as chief medical officer. Schachner joined from MyoKardia, now part of Bristol Myers Squibb, where she was senior vice president of clinical development and therapeutic area head. LinkedIn
> Neurology biopharma Trevi Therapeutics named Lisa Delfini its chief financial officer and Danine Summers its vice president of medical affairs. Delfini comes from Marcum LLP, where she was a financial accounting partner, and Summers previously was SVP of medical affairs at Menlo Therapeutics. Release
> Sparx Therapeutics named Juxiang Xia its chief operating officer for Sparx Yangzhou to help lead the opening of a manufacturing site in the Chinese city by the end of 2022. Xia brings operation, government affairs and investing experience from Fosun. Release
> Timothy Compton joined pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing company Alcami as chief business officer. He was previously chief commercial officer of Avid Bioservices. Release
> Medical device company Dymicron named Gunther Peeters its senior vice president of commercial operations. He joined from Mainstay Medical, where he was vice president of international market development. Release
> Digital therapeutics and health tech company Woebot Health selected Kim Goodwin as vice president of user experience. Goodwin was previously a consultant to companies like Medtronic, Boeing and Best Buy. Release
> Marion Snyder was promoted to chief of staff and senior vice president for government affairs at MiMedx Group. Snyder joined the regenerative medicine company in 2013 and was recently SVP of market access. Release
> Dominic Clarke, Ph.D., is now chief technical officer of cell and gene therapy at Discovery Life Sciences. He joined the biospecimen and biomarker specialist from HemaCare, where was global head of cell therapy. Release
> Adam Levitt was named CEO of sterile injectable parenteral drugs maker American Injectables. He was previously CEO of Shilpa Pharma and was already on the American Injectables board. The company also named Gilad Shadur as CFO after he held the CFO, R&D and portfolio role at Teva Pharmaceuticals. And Alison Brown joined as vice president of quality. Release
> Velocity Clinical Research chose Dominic Clavell to be executive vice president of its Europe division. Clavell was most recently senior vice president of global site solutions at Parexel. Also coming from Parexel is Erin Williams, who will be VP of regulatory and site contracting. And, Charles-Hubert Devaux joined as senior director of patient recruitment from Clinical Trial Media. Release
> Betzy Estrada joins Urovant Sciences as executive vice president and chief human resources officer. Estrada comes to the Sumitovant Biopharma subsidiary from Nihon Kohden, where she was VP of HR and chief compliance leader. Release