December 2024 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 36-37
// YOUR MOVES //
Your Moves
Movers of the Month
Calluna Pharma has announced the appointments of Mark Gaffney as Chief Executive Officer and Mark Altmeyer as Chair of the Board. Alongside these appointments, John Montana, who has been acting as the company's interim CEO, will return to his role as an Operating Partner at Forbion.
Gaffney brings over 20 years of experience in corporate strategy, business development, and operations in both private and public biotechnology companies, and will lead the team that defines and executes on the corporate strategy, particularly as its lead programme is on pace to complete its phase 1 programme later this year.
Prior to Calluna, Gaffney was CEO of Oxular Limited, a company developing novel drug delivery and formulation technologies to treat retinal disorders, where he remains a strategic advisor and member of the Board.
Before joining Oxular, he served as Chief Business Officer and later as Chief Operating Officer at Vedere Bio, a company focused on developing next-generation ocular gene therapies, which was acquired by Novartis in late 2020.
Gaffney has held corporate development and operational positions at Cyclerion Therapeutics and Ironwood Pharmaceuticals and holds a degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a Juris Doctor degree from Boston University.
Altmeyer, the newly appointed Independent Chair of the Calluna Board, brings extensive leadership experience, having served on the boards and as an advisor to several pharma and biotech companies. He is currently Chair of AM-Pharma and also serves on the boards of Novaremed, Merz Therapeutics, Aculys and Alector, all focusing on CNS and neurological treatments.
Previously, he was President and CEO of Arvelle Therapeutics, Chief Commercial Officer at Axovant Sciences, and held senior roles at Otsuka America and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Altmeyer holds a BA in Economics from Middlebury College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Tessellate BIO has appointed of Dr Lara Boyd as Chief Business Officer.
Lara joins Tessellate BIO from F-star Therapeutics, an innovation-focused biotech company dedicated to delivering next-generation multispecific antibody therapeutics, where she held a number of senior roles, most recently VP Head of BD and Corporate Strategy, responsible for end-to-end business development activities.
Prior to joining F-star Lara held business development roles at Cancer Research Technology and Cancer Research UK. Lara completed her PhD at the MRC Genome Damage and Stability Centre and then undertook postdoctoral research at the Barts Cancer Institute.
Andree Blaukat, CEO, Tessellate BIO said, “Lara brings exceptionally strong and relevant experience to Tessellate BIO, with a proven track record in business development and background in cancer research. I have no doubt she will add considerable strength to our leadership team as we continue our rapid growth and development.”
Lara added: “I am hugely excited to be joining Tessellate BIO. The development of new treatments for cancer has driven my career both in research and in business, and Tessellate BIO’s approach to precision medicine represents an enormous opportunity for patients whose needs are not being met by current medicines.”
Neuraxpharm has appointed three distinguished professionals to its Multiple Sclerosis (MS) therapy team.
Steven Brewerton joins as the Business Unit Lead. With over 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical and FMCG industries, Steven brings a wealth of knowledge in strategic business management and a proven track record of successful product launches.
His leadership will be instrumental in driving the team to commercial success.
Meanwhile, Zeshan Ahmed has been appointed as the UK Medical Lead. Zeshan brings extensive experience from his time in the NHS and pharma industry, overseeing the medical strategy alongside leading on compliance. His expertise will be crucial in heading the medical affairs team.
In addition, Claudine Dawkes takes on the role of Marketing Lead bringing over 18 years of marketing experience in the healthcare sector.
Her innovative patient-centred approach to marketing and deep understanding of the changing MS landscape will be key in developing and executing effective marketing strategies for the team.
These appointments reflect Neuraxpharm’s commitment to enhancing patient outcomes and solidifying its position as a leader in MS treatment.
Commit Biologics has announced the appointment of Mikkel Wandahl Pedersen as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO).
Mikkel is a seasoned R&D executive and scientific leader with over two decades of experience in immuno-oncology, and autoimmune disease drug discovery and development.
Most recently, he served as the CSO of Oslo-based Nykode Therapeutics, where he successfully created and executed a new research strategy, scaled the research organisation to support an expanding pipeline and spearheaded key collaborations with external pharmaceutical partners.
Prior to Nykode, Mikkel served as CSO of Symphogen (Ballerup, Denmark), where he held broad R&D responsibilities for the antibody discovery platform, lead discovery, preclinical as well as translational pharmacology, and advanced a number of products through IND studies and into the clinic.
Following the acquisition of Symphogen by Servier, he played a critical role in the integration of the R&D team.
Krishna Polu, MD, Chief Executive Officer of Commit Biologics, said: “Commit will greatly benefit from Mikkel’s exceptional leadership and deep scientific expertise. His years of experience in antibody-based drug discovery and his proven track record of building highly productive R&D teams will be invaluable as we move towards drug candidate (DC) nomination.”
Mikkel enthused: “Commit’s BiCE-based approach, harnessing the power of the complement system, has huge potential for tackling serious diseases, including cancer and autoimmune diseases. We have the opportunity to create a unique approach to developing meaningful therapies for patients, which is one of the main reasons I have joined this exciting company.”
Kyowa Kirin has announced the appointment of Abdul Mullick as the company’s new President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), effective following formal approval at the Shareholder meeting in March 2025.
Bringing more than 20 years of expertise in the pharmaceutical industry to this new role, including extensive background in serious and rare diseases, Abdul will help facilitate the continued growth and evolution of the Japan-based global specialty pharmaceutical company, with a focus on bringing medicines with life-changing value to patients living with serious and rare diseases.
Abdul will work in tandem with Masashi Miyamoto, Chairman & CEO, to advance the company’s vision for 2030, including how the company aims to realise its long-term goals to advance novel medicines for people living with bone/mineral, intractable haematologic/haemato-oncology, and rare diseases around the world.
Curve Therapeutics has appointed Rab Prinjha as Chief Research and Development (R&D) Officer.
Rab is a proven R&D leader with a more than 20-year track record of success leading drug discovery programmes and collaborations pioneering research across immunology, oncology, neuroscience and epigenetics using small molecule, nucleic acid and biologic modalities.
He joins from GSK where he was Head of the Immunology Research Unit and Immunology Network sponsor and led the team reshaping and focusing the immunology research portfolio. Under his leadership this team delivered over 15 clinical candidates and over 30 new targets.
Curve’s mission is to improve patient outcomes by discovering innovative drugs that address the most challenging and complex disease targets.
Rab will be responsible for the therapeutic portfolio strategy to advance the Company’s growing pipeline of first-in-class assets, including a dual HIF-1/HIF-2 inhibitor and an inhibitor of ATIC homodimerisation.
He will also leverage his expertise in oncology, neuroscience, immunology and epigenetics to further enhance target selection and validation using Curve’s revolutionary, disease agnostic Microcycle discovery platform.
Simon Kerry, Chief Executive Officer of Curve Therapeutics, said: “Rab is the latest addition to the truly world-class leadership team we are assembling at Curve; his skill set, experience and passion align with our mission to successfully drug complex and challenging disease targets and develop life-changing drugs for patients.”
Tanvex BioPharma has appointed Stephen Lam as the company's Chief Executive Officer.
Stephen succeeds Henry Chen, who will remain the Chairman until the closing of Tanvex’s strategic alliance with Bora Pharmaceuticals.
Stephen will be responsible for ensuring a successful integration, driving the company’s strategic initiatives as well as overseeing Tanvex's day-to-day operations, including its global CDMO operations and the commercialisation of its biosimilar pipeline.
“We are thrilled to welcome Stephen to Tanvex’s leadership team,” commented Henry Chen. “His extensive experience in biologics operations and proven track record of driving operational excellence will be instrumental to advancing our CDMO capabilities.”
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