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.
Pfizer finds dealmaker replacement in McKinsey's co-U.S. managing partner Aamir Malik to fill COVID-19, M&A shoes of John Young
Pfizer
Aamir Malik will be the next M&A leader for Pfizer.
Malik joins from the Big Pharma as chief business innovation officer after serving as co-U.S. managing partner of McKinsey & Company, where he also previously headed up the consulting giant's global pharma practice. Malik starts Monday and will be responsible for business development, portfolio management, pipeline prioritization and new business ventures. He takes over the chief business officer role helmed by John Young for the past three years, a small portion of his 34-year career at Pfizer. He led the COVID-19 vaccine collaboration with BioNTech as well as the Big Pharma's acquisition of antibiotics maker Arixa last year and the $11.4 billion buyout of cancer specialist Array BioPharma in 2019. Fierce Pharma
Recordati Rare Diseases snags ex-Novartis pituitary expert, former Chiasma SVP as chief medical officer
Recordati Rare Diseases
William Ludlam, M.D., Ph.D., is joining Recordati Rare Diseases as chief medical officer.
Ludlam joins from Chiasma, where he helped the pharma triumph in a four-year battle to get its acromegaly pill across the FDA finish line last June. He was senior vice president of clinical development and medical affairs at Chiasma and has also been senior medical director for pituitary disorders in Novartis' rare disease franchise. At Recordati, Ludlam will lead the Italian pharma's portfolio of rare disease treatments in the U.S. and Canada. Fierce Biotech
Neurogastrx hires former Millendo Therapeutics CMO, also snags CBO and CFO to reunite former Ironwood team
Neurogastrx
Christophe Arbet-Engels, M.D., Ph.D., joins the late-stage GI biotech as chief medical officer.
Arbet-Engels previously held the same role at Millendo Therapeutics. His endocrinologist background complements the biotech's gastroenterologist expertise. The acid reflux biotech also hired Chief Business Officer Paul Rogers and Chief Financial Officer Jim DeTore in conjunction with a $60 million series B as it looks to go against a field of proton pump inhibitors for GERD. DeTore, Rogers and CEO James O'Mara all worked together at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals in the early 2010s. Fierce Biotech
> Philippe Deecke joins Lonza as chief financial officer starting Dec. 1, succeeding Rodolfo J. Savitzky. He joins from Novartis, where he was global CFO for the oncology franchise. Release
> Lindsay Androski was named CEO, president and founder of Roivant Sciences' nonprofit Roivant Social Ventures. Androski is president of Incubate and sits on the MIT board of trustees. Release
> Richard Buckley will be the chief corporate affairs officer for EQRx. He previously led AstraZeneca's Healthcare Foundation and was also vice president of global corporate affairs for the Big Pharma. Release
> Jean Fan, M.D., was promoted to chief clinical officer of NeoImmuneTech. Fan joined the T-cell biopharma last year from Blueprint Medicines, where she was vice president of clinical development and helped the company get the FDA green light for Ayvakit. Release
> NeuExcell Therapeutics chose Russ Addis, Ph.D., as its first vice president of research. Addis previously led the research program at rare diseases startup Aro Biotherapeutics. Release
> Generic drugs maker Civica Rx named Bob Ripley as vice president of clinical services. Ripley comes from Trinity Health, where he was vice president and chief pharmacy officer. LinkedIn
> Justin Thacker joined immunology biotech Aristea Therapeutics as chief financial officer. Thacker was previously vice president of finance at Design Therapeutics. Release
> Immuno-oncology biotech GT Biopharma promoted Gregory Berk, M.D., as president of R&D. Berk was already chief medical officer of the clinical stage biotech. He previously held the CMO role at a bevy of startups including Celularity, Verastem, Sideris Pharmaceuticals, BIND Therapeutics and Intellikine. Release
> Jane Myles joined decentralized clinical trials software firm Curebase as vice president of clinical trial innovation. Myles was director of decentralized trials at Covance previously and prior to that spent more than a decade at Roche as global head of patient recruitment and operational intelligence and innovation. Release
> Portable MRI device maker Hyperfine named Alok Gupta its chief financial officer. Gupta was CFO and chief strategy officer at smart glass tech company Halio previously. Release
> Disc Medicine promoted Will Savage, M.D., Ph.D., to chief medical officer and Jonathan Yu to chief business officer. The clinical-stage hematologic biotech also made a pair of hires: Hua Yang, Ph.D., as vice president of nonclinical development and clinical pharmacology and Sarah Tuller as vice president of regulatory affairs. Yang was previously VP of DMPK and clinical pharmacology at Agios Pharmaceuticals, and Tuller comes from Astellas, where she held leadership roles in regulatory affairs for rare diseases. Release
> Ariel Precision Medicine named David C. Whitcomb, M.D., Ph.D., its chief scientific officer. He co-founded the biotech in 2015 and is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh and an adjunct at Carnegie Mellon University. Release
> David J. Ramos joined Seven Bridges as chief technology officer. Ramos comes to the bioinformatics company from CVS Health, where he was a lead engineer on the HealthCloud platform. Release
> Synthetic biology company Codagenix named Tyler Cook its chief financial officer. He previously held the same role at Samus Therapeutics. Release
> Charles J. Ryan, M.D., joined the Prostate Cancer Foundation as president and CEO. The genitourinary oncologist was previously director of the hematology, oncology and transplantation division in the University of Minnesota's Department of Medicine. Release