34-35 - Your moves

Evonetix – the synthetic biology company bringing semiconductor technology to DNA synthesis – has revealed Paul Beastall as Chair of the Board of Directors.

Paul was previously a Non-Executive Director at Evonetix, having joined the Board in 2020. His new appointment as Chair will see him take a more involved role in guiding product development strategy. This announcement follows the Company’s recent patent grant for technology enabling thermally controlled DNA synthesis.
Paul has over 20 years’ experience in product development, global industrial and consumer markets, and strategic consultancy, previously holding senior positions at start-ups, large corporations, government level and consultancy businesses. His most recent role was Strategy Director at Cambridge Consultants, where he worked with the executive team to develop business strategy and partnerships, before joining Evonetix as Non-Executive Chair.

He also holds a master’s degree in electronic systems engineering from the University of York and is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Enthera Pharmaceuticals, a company developing first-in-class biologics for selected autoimmune conditions based on the discovery of a novel apoptosis pathway, has announced the appointment of Aled Williams as Chief Executive Officer and member of its Board of Directors.

Aled has over twenty-five years of experience as a senior executive in the biotechnology and pharma sectors, with a strong track record of success across multiple therapeutic areas. He has been responsible for corporate and portfolio strategy, devising R&D and market access strategies, as well as leading commercial product launches.
Aled joins Enthera from Polyneuron Pharmaceuticals AG, where he served as Chief Business Officer. Prior to this, he was Chief Commercial Officer at VectivBio and Therachon, where, as a member of the Executive team, he played a key role in the acquisition of GLyPharma Therapeutic and the subsequent acquisition of Therachon by Pfizer.

Enveda Biosciences, a leading biotechnology company harnessing the power of nature’s chemistry to develop next-generation small molecule drugs, has announced the appointment of Robert Buckley as its Chief People Officer.

Robert will be spearheading the company’s recruitment and development efforts to enhance the employee experience.

He most recently served as Chief People Officer of RainFocus LLC, the developers of a SaaS platform for customer and corporate meeting management. While at RainFocus, Robert built the company’s human resource function including employee recruitment and development, and all processes and technology.

Rejuvenate Biomed – a Belgian company developing novel combination drugs for age-related diseases – has appointed Janssen’s former Chair, Dr Ajit Shetty as new Chair of the Board of Directors. The appointment will support Rejuvenate’s international growth and collaborations.

He spent almost a decade as Managing Director of Janssen Pharmaceuticals in Belgium, during which he drove the enlargement of the Janssen Group of Companies from USD 1 billion to USD 8 billion in global sales.

Ajit was also awarded the Right Honourable Sir and Title of Baron by King Albert II of Belgium. Rejuvenate is developing safe, proprietary, combination drugs that delay or prevent the onset of multiple age-related diseases and this appointment will help to foster the Company’s international ambitions.

DNA Script, a world leader in Enzymatic DNA Synthesis for DNA on demand, has added life sciences veteran Chris Barbazette as Chief Commercial Officer to its leadership team.
In his new position, Chris will be responsible for leading DNA Script’s marketing, sales and support teams and will play a pivotal role in building upon the company’s market position to drive continued commercial growth, as well as investor and customer value.

Chris joins DNA Script from Resolve Biosciences, an emerging leader in spatial biology, where he served as Chief Commercial Officer and established the German parent company’s US headquarters.

In this role he developed the commercial strategy, led the development of the company’s branding, and built out front line sales, support and marketing teams.

Rho, a global full-service contract research organisation (CRO) with a proven track record of drug development success, has appointed Peter Schmidt as Senior Vice President, Government Partnerships of Rho’s Federal Systems Division.

For over 30 years, Rho has worked closely with NIH/NIAID and other federal departments on groundbreaking clinical trial and epidemiologic studies, including the LEAP peanut allergy study.

Prior to joining Rho, Peter oversaw basic, translational and clinical research in his role as Vice Dean at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine. As a biomedical researcher, he has contributed as an inventor, principal investigator and statistician across diverse domains.

During his long tenure at the National Parkinson Foundation, Peter designed and led the largest clinical study of Parkinson’s disease ever conducted. He has served on scientific and regulatory committees for federal programmes, with recent research focusing on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health and healthcare.

Vaxxas, a clinical-stage company commercialising a novel vaccination platform, has announced that Scott Fry will join the company as Chief Operating Officer and will lead Engineering and Manufacturing activities at Vaxxas.

Scott has first-hand experience in the development and rapid scale-up of manufacturing for medical products, leading cross-functional teams in multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology organisations.

In Scott’s most recent role as Chief Operations Officer for Ellume Limited, he was directly responsible for the successful launch of the first over-the-counter diagnostic test for COVID-19 in the United States.

Evaluate – a leading provider of market intelligence and predictive analytics for pharma – has announced that it has appointed Matthew Wright as Chief Financial Officer.

Matthew will work closely with both the Evaluate and Norstella executive and finance teams as the newly merged organisation combines as a global pharma commercial intelligence provider.

He also has over 15 years’ experience as a seasoned executive, providing financial analysis of performance, growth and acquisition opportunities and strategic decision support to senior leadership teams.

Matthew joins Evaluate from Informa Intelligence where he was most recently Finance Director. He previously held similar roles at TNT Express and Ascential and brings complementary knowledge of high value B2B subscription business to Evaluate.

Adcendo, a company focused on the development of breakthrough antibody-drug conjugates for the treatment of underserved cancers, today announces the appointment of Dominik Mumberg as Chief Scientific Officer.

Dominik has more than 20 years of experience in pharma. He joins Adcendo from Bayer AG, where he held several leadership roles of increasing responsibility, including Head of Therapeutic Research Area Oncology and VP, Targeted Alpha Therapies and Translational Innovation Lead.

Before his time at Bayer, Dominik was Director, Apoptosis & Signal Transduction Research at Schering AG.

Meanwhile, he holds a PhD degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Marburg, Germany, and spent three years of postdoctoral research in tumor immunology at the University of Chicago.

EpiEndo Pharmaceuticals – the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing disease-modifying therapeutics for chronic respiratory disorders – has appointed two new non-executive board members following the departure of Robert Helgason, who stepped down at the Company’s AGM in April 2022.

Dr Isaac Cohen is currently Founder, President and CEO of Iaterion and brings over 20 years’ experience in all phases of drug development and biopharmaceutical company management, from start-up to NASDAQ listing.

He was previously Founder, Chairman and CEO of Bionovo, having also been a guest scientist at the University of California, San Francisco Center for Reproductive Sciences and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, while also spending 20 years in private clinical practice in Berkeley, CA.

Dr Eugen Steiner is a partner at venture capital fund HealthCap and has 35 years’ executive management experience of multistage life sciences companies, having raised over 100 million EUR from European and US investors.

He is currently CEO of Nordic Vision Clinics AB and sits on the Boards of several public and private life sciences companies as well as the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship. A former practising physician, Dr Steiner received his medical degree and PhD from the Karolinska Institute.

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