June 2025 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 36-37
// YOUR MOVES //
Your Moves
Movers of the Month
PhoreMost has announced that Barbara Duncan has joined its board as chair and Stephen Dilly as non-executive director.
The appointments bring extensive commercial and leadership expertise to support the continued progression of the company’s novel degrader programmes towards clinical development and the commercialisation of its GlueSEEKER® platform, informing molecular glue design for unprecedented targets.
Barbara is an accomplished biopharma professional with an impressive executive and non-executive portfolio career.
With over 25 years’ leadership experience, she has contributed her notable corporate finance background to a series of high-profile exits as board director, including Fusion Pharmaceuticals’ $2.4 billion acquisition by AstraZeneca and Immunomedics’ $21 billion acquisition by Gilead.
Barbara has led companies through IPOs totalling over $140 million, raised $1.5 billion in financing, and overseen multiple strategic exits, demonstrating broad expertise in finance, M&A, and operational scaling for small molecule and oncology-focused platforms.
She currently serves on the boards of Convergent Therapeutics, Halozyme, Atea Pharmaceuticals and OVID Therapeutics.
Meanwhile, Stephen Dilly has a strong track record of advancing multiple therapeutic programmes through clinical development and taking several companies to exit, with total transactions valued at over $4 billion.
He has held C-level, VP, and board positions across an established portfolio of therapeutic and platform companies, including Genentech, Chiron and Aimmune Therapeutics, where he led the company through IPO and development into a phase 3 biopharmaceutical business.
Stephen held a pivotal role in the FDA approval of Aimmune’s peanut allergy drug, Palforzia, and subsequently supported the company’s $2.4 billion acquisition by Nestlé Health Sciences.
He brings deep oncology experience, and as CEO of Sierra Oncology, was instrumental in advancing the lead programme, Momelotinib, through phase 3 trials and overseeing its $1.9 billion acquisition by GSK. Stephen currently serves as CEO and chair of Codexis.
Astraveus SAS has strengthened its leadership team and board of directors with three experienced hires.
Jean-Paul Mangeolle joins as chairman of the board of directors, David Newble as a new independent board member and Laurence Riot Lamotte as Chief Financial Officer.
Jean-Paul Mangeolle has over 35 years of experience in life sciences, holding numerous board roles at early-stage and established life sciences companies.
He has also held several executive positions at Millipore (now MilliporeSigma) and Danaher.
David Newble has held multiple C-suite roles across various life sciences technology companies, including the founding of protein analytics company Fluidic Sciences.
He is a former CEO of SPT Labtech and TAP Biosystems, where he played a pivotal role in the development of the Ambr® bioreactor portfolio prior to the company’s acquisition by Sartorius.
Laurence has over 30 years of experience – over 20 of which were in financial leadership positions in the life sciences industry.
She has worked across private and public companies, leading several notable financings, including IntegraGen’s IPO on Euronext Growth Paris.
She joins from Evexta Bio, an oncology biotech, where she served as CFO.
Jérémie Laurent, Chief Executive Officer, commented: “Laurence, Jean-Paul and David are all highly experienced and talented life science executives whose expertise will greatly enrich our operations and accelerate our development.
“This is a transformational time for Astraveus, and we are confident that our team is better placed than ever to advance our Lakhesys Benchtop Cell Factory.”
Clinigen has appointed Nihad Hasagic as Senior Vice President for Clinigen Lifecycle Services (SVP CLS).
CLS plays a key role in Clinigen’s growing service portfolio, helping to facilitate accelerated pathways to patients for critical medicines at every stage of their life cycle, even in complex markets.
This key appointment is part of a broader leadership realignment designed to sharpen the company’s focus on achieving its growth objectives and capitalise on key market opportunities.
Previously, as SVP of strategic initiatives, Nihad was pivotal in successful acquisitions and the development of the company’s core growth strategy, including his foundational work in launching CLS and shaping its commercial strategy.
This track record, combined with over 20 years of experience in the healthcare, life science and specialty chemicals industries – leading multiple acquisitions and corporate initiatives – makes him exceptionally well-suited to lead the new division and capture opportunities in the rapidly expanding specialist pharma services market.
Jerome Charton, CEO of Clinigen, says: “There is no one better placed than Nihad to lead Clinigen Lifecycle Services as we continue to strengthen our market presence, capture high-growth specialist pharma services opportunities, and drive enhanced returns for our investors.”
Nihad Hasagic enthused: “I’m excited to focus on accelerating the growth of CLS by strengthening our industry position and ensuring we continue to deliver value to our clients and stakeholders.
“With the foundation we’ve already built, we can better support the transition of innovative medicines and have a positive impact on patients’ lives.”
Tozaro has announced the appointment of Dr Jason Slingsby as Chief Executive Officer.
Jason will lead the company’s long-term strategy, including commercialisation of its Smart Polymer technology to enhance downstream manufacturing of viral vectors in cell and gene therapy (CGT).
A renowned biotech leader, Jason has over 20 years of experience and demonstrated successes in business development, strategic partnering, M&A, fundraising and establishing and managing significant commercial relationships.
He will lead Tozaro as it capitalises on early momentum following the company’s transition to the CGT bioprocessing sector in August 2024, since which time Guy Leaver, board member, has been acting as interim CEO.
Prior to joining Tozaro, Jason was chief business officer for LifeArc, where he led all business development, alliance management, IP, funding and technology transfer functions.
Before this, he was chief business and corporate development officer at OXB (previously Oxford Biomedica), a leading viral vector CDMO, where he guided the company’s M&A and strategic partnering efforts, including significant expansion into the US market.
As CEO and co-founder of ProtAffin AG, a clinical-stage spin-out, he secured more than £20m in funding to develop novel biologics.
Jason said: “Tozaro is an exciting company in the cell and gene therapy manufacturing technology space, and I look forward to working with the team, and with Michele as the new chair, to continue to build value, forge new partnerships and strengthen our position as innovators."
Flagship Pioneering and Quotient Therapeutics have announced that Rahul Kakkar will join Flagship Pioneering as CEO-partner and Quotient Therapeutics as chief executive officer.
Rahul is a biotech entrepreneur and physician-scientist with nearly 20 years of professional experience founding and building biotechnology companies and practising medicine.
Previously, he served as president and CEO of Tome Biosciences, a genome engineering biotechnology platform company.
Prior to Tome, Rahul was CEO at Pandion Therapeutics, a biologics drug design platform company focused on autoimmune diseases that successfully completed an IPO before its acquisition by Merck for $1.85 billion.
Before his role at Pandion, Rahul served as founder, chief medical officer and chief strategy officer at Corvidia Therapeutics, which was acquired by Novo Nordisk for $2.1 billion. He was also director of emerging innovations at AstraZeneca.
Noubar Afeyan PhD, co-founder of Quotient Therapeutics and founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, said: “Rahul’s experience as a successful entrepreneur and leader in the biotech industry, and his expertise in drug R&D and biotechnology platforms, will be invaluable to Quotient.
“We’re pleased to have him join as a CEO-partner at Flagship and look forward to his contributions to Quotient, to Flagship and to our ecosystem.”
Rahul said: “The Human Genome Project opened incredible avenues 20 years ago for therapeutics development, creating hundreds of new medicines for patients."
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