In a significant move at the larger end of the biopharma world, AstraZeneca’s global VP of cardiovascular, renal and metabolism made the move to Novo Nordisk to head up its biopharm unit.
Another move saw a boost to the number of women working in leadership positions in the biopharma industry, with the appointment of Vanessa King and Isabel Najera at newly formed biotech, Virion Biotherapeutics.
For these appointments and more, click through the gallery:
In a significant move at the larger end of the biopharma world, AstraZeneca’s global VP of cardiovascular, renal and metabolism made the move to Novo Nordisk to head up its biopharm unit.
Another move saw a boost to the number of women working in leadership positions in the biopharma industry, with the appointment of Vanessa King and Isabel Najera at newly formed biotech, Virion Biotherapeutics.
For these appointments and more, click through the gallery:
Novo Nordisk have brought in Ludovic Helfgott from fellow big pharma player AstraZeneca, to take up the position of EVP of biopharm.
The company’s biopharm business includes its haemophilia portfolio and human growth hormone franchise. In the role, Helfgott will report directly to Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk.
Up until present, Helfgott has remained at AstraZeneca for the duration of his pharma career.. He held various positions, across a range of geographical areas, including at AstraZeneca Italia and AstraZeneca España. He most recently occupied the position of global VP of cardiovascular, renal and metabolism at AstraZeneca.
Commenting on his new role, he said, “I'm excited to join Novo Nordisk and look forward to working with the biopharm team on improving lives for people with haemophilia, growth disorders and other serious chronic diseases”.
Helfgott will replace Jesper Brandgaard in the role, after the latter decided to retire after a 20-year career at Novo Nordisk that ended with him being EVP of biopharm and legal affairs.
Jørgensen said of Brandgaard’s career at the company: “I would […] like to thank Jesper Brandgaard for his significant contributions to Novo Nordisk, both as our CFO for many years and most recently as head of biopharm, where he has taken important steps towards bringing the business back on a growth track.”
A veteran of Eli Lilly has taken up a position at Redpin Therapeutics as its CSO.
David Bleakman spent over 25 years with Eli Lilly, finishing his career at the company as VP and CSO for neuroscience. After a six-month break from the pharma industry, he joined Redpin.
The New York-based company is focused on developing treatments for severe neurological disorders, using chemogenetics that enables the targeted regulation of neuronal cell activity in the brain through a gene therapy approach. It was founded in 2017, supported through the financial backing of Arkin Bio Ventures, New York Ventures and Alexandria Venture Investments
Elma Hawkins, CEO of Redpin, stated: “We are thrilled to welcome David to our team and look forward to leveraging his expansive expertise in CNS drug discovery and development to guide the advancement of our technology platforms and pipeline.”
Bleakman explained the appeal of joining the newly-formed company, saying, “I was particularly drawn to the potentially broad applicability of Redpin’s technology and, hence, the opportunity to help many patients. Our technology can be used to address currently intractable disorders across disparate therapeutic areas.”
Virion Biotherapeutics announced the double appointment of its CEO and CSO positions, with Vanessa King (pictured left) and Isabel Najera (pictured right) taking the respective roles.
Both will be tasked with bringing through its therapeutic interfering particles (TIPs) that it aims to use to prevent viral replication. The biotech refers to this technology as ‘first-in-class biologicals’ that could be used for the prevention of infection and disease. In particular, the company will focus on respiratory virus infections.
“We are delighted to welcome Vanessa and Isabel, strong leaders with the skills and expertise to advance Virion and its pipeline for treating and preventing respiratory virus infections,” said Jeffrey Almond, chairman of Virion.
He continued, “Vanessa has a demonstrated track record of building, financing, and partnering successful biotech companies. Isabel has extensive expertise in the discovery and development of novel antiviral agents. We look forward to applying their knowledge and leadership to Virion’s objective to bring broad spectrum antiviral therapeutics to patients.”
King joins as CEO after a varied career that saw her work for Novartis, as head of scientific and strategic operations for three years, and at Amgen, where she performed the role of executive director of external R&D.
Najera brings with her a number of years’ experience of working for Roche in its virology unit, where she finished her time at the company as senior director, deputy head of discovery and infectious diseases.
Emile Nuwaysir has been appointed to the role of vice chairman at the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (AMR). The organisation is an international multi-stakeholder advocacy group that promotes initiatives to improve access to regenerative medicines worldwide.
Nuwaysir will take on the role alongside his full-time role as CEO of BlueRock Therapeutics – an engineered cell therapy company that produces native therapies to restore or regenerate lost function to damaged or degenerated tissue.
Matt Patterson, who was formerly vice chairman, will now step up to the role of chairman.
Nuwaysir commented on his appointment, “As a direct result of ARM's past advocacy, these revolutionary therapies are developed more quickly, accelerating patient access to safe and effective products. I am honoured by this appointment, as these advanced cell and gene therapies represent the next generation of medicine by addressing the underlying causes of disease.”
F-star Biotechnology, based in Cambridge, UK, has instated Eliot Forster as its new CEO. Forster joins the UK biotech after having accrued a number of years’ experience as a CEO within the biopharma space.
He spent three years as CEO of Solace Pharmaceuticals, almost five years as head of Creabilis and three years as CEO at Immunocore. Prior to these positions, he had spent 11 years at Pfizer and worked at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
At Immunocore, his most recent position, the biotech successfully raised $320m (€282m) in a Series A financing round, as well as developing clinical collaborations with AstraZeneca, GSK and Roche in the immuno-oncology (IO) area.
F-star is also working in the IO space, focusing on modifying monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) by introducing an additional antigen-binding site in the Fc region of an antibody.
“We are delighted to welcome Eliot as F-star’s new CEO. His proven track record in leading and developing biotech IO companies will be essential in driving F-star forward to deliver the next wave of immunotherapies for cancer patients,” said Nessan Bermingham, executive chair of F-star.
