Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of significant leadership hirings, firings and retirings across the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Darren Incorvaia or Gabrielle Masson and it will be featured here at the end of each week.
2 Kite vets fly over to Kyverna Therapeutics
Kyverna Therapeutics
Warren Biddle hit the exit from his role as SVP, global head of commercial at Gilead Sciences' CAR-T unit Kite Pharma to take on the CEO gig at fellow CAR-T maker Kyverna, effective immediately. The new CEO succeeds Peter Maag, Ph.D., who resigned after two years at the helm. After starting at Kite in 2020 following a decade at Genentech, Biddle served as Kite’s interim CEO when its former head Christi Shaw, who is also joining Kyverna as a member of the board, departed in 2023. Shaw replaces Brian Kotzin, M.D., who opted to step down. Release
Eyconis eyes Big Pharma vet as CEO
Eyconis Inc.
Eyconis, a biotech with its sights on treating eye diseases, has secured former Amgen and Bristol Myers Squibb leader Mark Bachleda as its new CEO. Bachleda most recently served as chief commercial officer at Galera Therapeutics and before that served in top roles at BMS, Amgen and Juno Therapeutics. He started his career at other top pharmas Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. Eyconis was launched at the beginning of the year by Ascendis Pharma and Frazier Life Sciences and was previously led by co-founder Emmett Cunningham, M.D., Ph.D., as executive chairman, a position he will still hold. Release
Structure reinforces exec team with promotion and hire
Structure Therapeutics
Structure, a biotech with an oral small molecule GLP-1 agonist set to enter a phase 2 trial later this year, is building up its leadership team in preparation. Blai Coll, M.D., Ph.D., is replacing Mark Bach, M.D., Ph.D., as chief medical officer, while Ashley Hall is the company’s first chief development officer. Coll was previously Structure’s vice president of endocrine and metabolism clinical development, while Hall is joining from Reneo Pharmaceuticals, where she served as CDO. Release
> Karen Knudsen, Ph.D., will step down from her role as CEO at the American Cancer Society and the affiliated American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, leaving the organization’s board to begin a national search for a new CEO before the end of the year. Release
> IMU Biosciences appointed Jason Brown, Ph.D., as CFO and Abcam vet John Baker as CEO, while current CEO Adam Laing, Ph.D., will stay on board as president and chief scientific officer. Release
> Abata Therapeutics’ chief technical officer Stephen Sofen, Ph.D., is retiring and passing the torch to seasoned executive Joanne Beck, Ph.D. Release
> With its lead candidate in phase 3 development, 89bio looped in Teresa Perney, Ph.D., as its new chief regulatory and quality officer. Release
> Ochre Bio’s co-founder and CEO Jack O’Meara is bidding adieu to the company, leaving Eliot Forster, Ph.D., in the executive chairman role during the interim. Announcement
> Nura Bio promoted chief scientific officer and founding member Shilpa Sambashivan, Ph.D., to the CEO role as it prepares to take its lead asset into a phase 1b/2 study. Release
> Kentaro (Ken) Suzuki is leaving Agilent Technologies and taking his mass spectrometry expertise with him to join Nautilus Biotechnology, a company developing techniques to quantify the proteome, as chief marketing officer. Release
> Precision medicine firm Entact Bio has appointed Ruben Tommasi, Ph.D., as chief scientific officer to help it in its mission of enhancing the function of beneficial proteins. Release
> HotSpot Therapeutics is bringing Alison O’Neill, M.D., on board from Surface Oncology to be its new chief medical officer. Release
> Investment firm Frazier Life Sciences is adding seasoned company founder Adam Simpson, whose most recent company Icosavax was acquired by AstraZeneca, to their company creation team as a venture partner. Release
> John Beeler, Ph.D., is taking the leap from BMS to BPGbio, where he’ll serve as senior vice president of business development. Release