We take a look at some of the people taking on top jobs in the biopharmaceutical industry this month: with Novartis, Moderna and Vaccitech among the companies welcoming new faces.
Novartis has appointed Karen L. Hale as Chief Legal Officer. She will report to Vas Narasimhan, M.D., CEO of Novartis: and become a member of the Executive Committee of Novartis as of May 15.
Hale will be based at the company’s headquarters in Basel, Switzerland and succeeds Shannon Klinger (who is moving to Moderna - see next slide). Tom Kendris will continue as Chief Legal Officer ad interim until Hale joins the company.
Hale has more than 20 years of global legal and compliance experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She joins Novartis from AbbVie where she most recently held the role of Vice President, Deputy General Counsel; while she was previously Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer at the company, leading the global compliance program and acting as an advisor to AbbVie’s Executive Leadership Team and Board of Directors.
Hale joined Abbott in 1997 and transitioned when AbbVie was created. Prior to joining Abbott, she was an associate attorney with the law firm Sidley & Austin in Chicago, Illinois.
Hale earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Duke University and a Juris Doctor (JD) degree from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.
mRNA company Moderna has appointed Shannon Thyme Klinger as its Chief Legal Officer. Klinger will serve on the company’s Executive Committee and as Corporate Secretary and report to Chief Executive Officer Stéphane Bancel.
Effective as of June, Klinger will join Moderna from Novartis, where she has served as Chief Legal Officer and a member of the Novartis Executive Committee since 2018. Previously, she was the company’s Chief Ethics, Risk & Compliance Officer. During 10 years at Novartis, she has also held other roles including as Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer and Global Head of Litigation, General Counsel and Global Head of Legal at Sandoz, a Novartis division.
Klinger serves on the board of directors of SwissHoldings (the Swiss federation of industrial and service groups) in Switzerland. She previously served on the board of directors of the SIX Group in Switzerland from 2016 to 2020.
“Shannon’s deep global experience in the pharmaceutical industry in both the general counsel and ethics and compliance roles are critical to Moderna as we pivot to a broad international and commercial footprint,” said Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna.
“Her combination of skills across corporate, life sciences, pharmaceutical technology, commercial and multi-national sectors, and her passion for ESG and public health will help Moderna advance our core technology platform, engage critical partners across the globe and help us expand and capitalize on our growing international presence.”
“It is an honor to join Moderna and its leadership team at such a remarkable moment in the transformation of the company,” said Klinger. “I look forward with enthusiasm to joining Moderna and helping continue to build an organization that supports the long-term demands of our evolving business, science, development programs and efforts to bring mRNA medicines to patients.”
Klinger received her Juris Doctorate with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame. She is a member of the State Bar of Georgia and the District of Columbia Bar.
Moderna’s General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Lori Henderson, J.D., will retire later this year, remaining with the company for the time being to ensure a smooth transition with Moderna’s next General Counsel.
Cambridge, UK company Evonetix has appointed Dr Michael Daniels as Head of Product Management.
Evonetix is a synthetic biology company developing a desktop platform for scalable, high-fidelity and rapid gene synthesis. In his new role, Dr Daniels will focus on the development and introduction of Evonetix’s first product, a DNA desktop writer. He will work closely with the prospective customers and users of the company’s products as well as the team’s engineers and research scientists.
Dr Daniels brings with him over 15 years of experience in marketing and product management across the biotech sector. His previous roles include Director of Marketing and Product Management at Arcis Biotechnology, Senior Manager of Marketing and Business Development at Cancer Research UK, and Director of Marketing and Product Management at Thermo Fisher Scientific, as well as leading various projects at GE Healthcare Life Sciences.
Dr Daniels holds a PhD from the Department of Biochemistry and Genetics at the University of Newcastle. He has also completed numerous professional qualifications and training in marketing, management, and IP law.
PathoQuest, a company working in the development and application of novel Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)-based testing solutions for the biologics industry, has appointed Colette Côté, Ph.D. as Chief Portfolio Officer and General Manager of PathoQuest’s US subsidiary in Wayne, PA.
Dr. Côté’s expertise and experience with NGS-based assays in the biopharma biosafety testing space will help the Paris-headquartered company continue its expansion and growth of its NGS-based services portfolio in North America.
As US General Manager and a member of PathoQuest’s leadership team, Dr. Côté will report directly to Jean-François Brepson, CEO of PathoQuest, with the immediate responsibilities of completing the buildout and certification of the company’s new Wayne facility. This facility will begin offering GMP-level NGS testing services later in 2021.
As Chief Portfolio Officer, she will also develop and refine an expanded portfolio of NGS-based biosafety testing services to further meet the emerging needs of the biopharmaceutical and bioproduction industry.
“NGS-based applications, and more importantly, their acceptance by the regulatory agencies, is growing at an incredibly rapid pace,” noted Dr. Côté. “The expansion of PathoQuest in its US facility in Wayne strategically places PathoQuest in a position to meet and exceed the growing needs of the biopharma market.”
Prior to joining PathoQuest, Dr. Côté was Director and Head of NGS R&D Testing Services at MilliporeSigma with responsibilities for overseeing the company’s global NGS operations for the testing services business: which included the development of a wide range of novel NGS applications over the past 13 years. This saw her work closely with key stakeholders in the industry and highlighted the advantages of NGS in consortiums and conferences. Her experience also includes the development of novel therapeutics and applications at several small start-up companies.
Dr. Côté received a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry from Brown University and was a post-doctoral fellow in the Genetics and Biochemistry Branch of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
AavantiBio, a gene therapy company focused on rare genetic diseases, has appointed Christopher Wright, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer.
A neurologist and neuroscientist, Dr. Wright has more than 20 years of medical research and drug development experience in specialty and CNS orphan diseases, including cystic fibrosis, dementias, epilepsy, mitochondrial diseases, and sickle cell disease.
Dr. Wright most recently served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Cyclerion Therapeutics, where he led global development functions across therapeutic areas, including clinical development and operations, regulatory affairs, patient safety, quality, and pharmaceutical development.
Prior to this, he led the global development organization at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, including responsibility for advancing the late stage and life cycle gastrointestinal and soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator programs.
Dr. Wright has also held senior medical and clinical roles at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where as senior vice president for medicines development and affairs he oversaw the development of Orkambi through Phase 3, and the successful development and approval of cystic fibrosis therapy Kalydeco.
Bo Cumbo, Chief Executive Officer of AavantiBio, said: “Chris and I previously worked together at Vertex. I know his extensive background in CNS diseases and specialized experience in orphan drug development, along with his unique perspective as a physician and scientist, will be essential to our mission of bringing transformative therapies to patients with rare genetic diseases.”
Dr Wright said: “I’m excited to partner with this experienced team to advance the development of the Company’s lead program in Friedreich’s Ataxia and broader pipeline of gene therapies to patients who need them most.”
Elicera Therapeutics, a cell and gene therapy company developing immuno-oncology treatments with a focus on CAR T-cells and oncolytic viruses, has appointed Karin Hoogendoorn (PharmD) to the Board.
She joins the Gothenburg, Sweden headquartered company as a key cell therapy expert. The company is working on accelerated development of its next generation oncolytic virus and CAR T-cell clinical and pre-clinical programs, together with its proprietary iTANK platform for optimizing CAR T-cells.
Hoogendoon has 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, predominantly in the field of advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), monoclonal antibodies and viral vector based vaccines. She has held various roles of increasing responsibility covering chemical, manufacturing and controls (CMC) and regulatory affairs from pre-clinical to commercial phases for small, medium and large pharmaceutical companies in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden and Japan.
She is currently a member of the International Advisory Board of the Swedish Centre for Advanced Medical Products (CAMP).
Vaccitech, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of novel immunotherapeutics and vaccines for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases and cancer, has appointed three new independent directors to its Board of Directors.
Dr. Anne Phillips, FRCPC, Karen A. Dawes, MBA and Joseph Scheeren, PharmD, have joined the board over the last two months.
Dr. Phillips has extensive biopharmaceutical product development experience. She currently serves as Senior Vice President Clinical, Medical & Regulatory Affairs at Novo Nordisk, where she has overseen more than a dozen FDA drug approvals.
Prior to this, she served in multiple executive roles in drug development at GlaxoSmithKline including Vice President Medicine Development Leader of a leading prostate cancer therapeutic. Before building a long career in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Phillips served as Head of Infectious Diseases programs and Deputy Physician-in-chief at Wellesley Central Hospital/St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada.
Ms. Dawes has served as an executive at several biopharmaceutical companies including Bayer Corp., Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Genetics Institute and Pfizer, where she held leadership roles in business, marketing and commercialization. More recently, Ms. Dawes has led her own successful consultancy company working with emerging companies on corporate strategy and commercial development.
Since 2005, Ms. Dawes has served on the boards of several public and private biopharmaceutical companies, and she continues to serve on the boards of Repligen Corp., Medicines 360, Medicenna Therapeutics and PaxMedica Therapeutics.
Dr. Scheeren's expertise is in research and development and regulatory affairs in the pharmaceutical industry. He recently retired from his role as President and Chief Executive Officer of Critical Path Institute, a non-profit organization that validates tools to accelerate drug development.
He has previously held various senior roles at Bayer AG for 15 years, including as head of global regulatory affairs. His career has also included executive positions at Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Roussel UCLAF, Ares Serono and Les Laboratoires Servier. He currently serves as a director on several boards of non-profit organizations, is an adjunct Professor of Regulatory Science at Peking University, Beijing, and is a lecturer at Yale University. Dr Scheeren earned his PharmD at the University of Leiden, Leiden, the Netherlands, School of Pharmacy.