Catalent, SK bioscience and CureVac are among the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
Catalent, SK bioscience and CureVac are among the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
Catalent has appointed Ricardo Zayas as Senior Vice President, Operations, Biologics North America.
Zayas will be responsible for all of the company’s North American biologics operations, including its centers of excellence for drug product fill/finish in Bloomington, Indiana, and gene therapy manufacturing in Harmans, Maryland.
He will also serve on the Executive Leadership Team, reporting directly to Catalent’s President & Chief Executive Officer, Alessandro Maselli.
Mr. Zayas’ experience includes more than 30 years working in pharmaceutical manufacturing and operations leadership. He joins Catalent from Ocyonbio, a biosimilars, cell and gene, and viral vector development and manufacturing company, where he was Chief Operating Officer.
Prior to that, as Executive Vice President and Head of Operations for Romark Pharmaceuticals, he led the development and buildout of Romark’s new manufacturing facility in Puerto Rico.
His career also includes seven years at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he held the position of Senior Vice President, Global Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Product Strategy, and led global pharmaceutical and API manufacturing, overseeing more than 8,000 employees worldwide.
He has also held pharmaceutical manufacturing leadership roles at Sterling Drug, Warner-Lambert, Pfizer, Schering Plough, AMAG Pharmaceuticals, and Avon Products.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas.
George Scangos, Ph.D., will retire from his position as Vir’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective April 3, 2023.
Dr. Scangos has served as Vir’s President and CEO, and as a member of the Board of Directors since January 2017. Under Dr. Scangos’ leadership, the company has delivered therapies for Ebola and COVID-19 to millions of patients around the world, built a pipeline across five therapeutic areas, and established a strong balance sheet with approximately $2.7bn in cash and cash equivalents. In 2022, Vir was named the fastest growing company on the 2022 Deloitte Technology Fast 500.
Prior to joining San Francisco-headquartered Vir, Dr. Scangos served as CEO and as a member of the Board of Biogen for six years. Previously, he was President and CEO of Exelixis for 14 years. In recognition of his industry leadership, Dr. Scangos was among the top 10 CEOs to be named a “Businessperson of the Year” by Fortune (2014 and 2015). He was also named one of “The Best Performing CEOs in the World” by Harvard Business Review for three straight years (2014, 2015 and 2016) and “The Most Admired CEO” by the San Francisco Business Times (2021).
Dr. Scangos served as Chair of PhRMA in 2016, and as the Chair of the California Healthcare Institute in 2010. He received the Pantheon Life Sciences Leadership Award in 2018 and was named lead of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s response to Coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2020. Today, he serves on the Board of Overseers of the University of California, San Francisco and the Board of Trustees of Life Science Cares.
Incoming CEO
Vir has appointed industry veteran Marianne De Backer, MSc, Ph.D., MBA (currently Executive Vice President, Head of Pharmaceuticals Strategy, Business Development and Licensing/Open Innovation, and Member of the Executive Committee for Bayer Pharmaceuticals) as Scangos’ successor, effective April 3, 2023. She will also join Vir’s Board of Directors.
Upon his retirement as CEO, Dr. Scangos will serve in an advisory role to Dr. De Backer through June 2, 2023 and will continue providing strategic counsel to Vir as a member of the Board of Directors.
Dr. De Backer brings to her new role more than two decades of broad international leadership experience, including a strong track record in global expansion, innovation technology licensing and multiple billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions. Throughout her career, she has been directly accountable for more than 200 strategic alliances in healthcare, many of which have led to approved medicines.
Prior to joining Bayer, Dr. De Backer spent more than 20 years at the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, first as a scientist and scientific group leader, and later taking on roles of increasing responsibility and scope, including corporate development and international commercial positions.
Dr. De Backer holds a Master in Molecular Biology from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, a Master in Engineering and Biochemistry, and a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Ghent University, Belgium, and an MBA from Erasmus University, Rotterdam. She currently serves as a non-executive Director on the Boards of Directors of the Gladstone Foundation, Kronos Bio, Inc., Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc., and serves on the Boards of Bayer companies: Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc., Vividion Therapeutics, Inc. and BlueRock Therapeutics LP.
In 2022, Dr. De Backer was recognized by Manager Magazin as one of the “100 Most Influential Women” in German business and one of Healthcare Technology Report’s “Top 25 Women Leaders in Biotechnology.” She was also named one of the “Fiercest Women in Life Sciences” by Fierce Pharma (2020), one of the “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” (2020) by the San Francisco Business Times, one of Silicon Valley Business Journal’s “Women of Influence” (2018) and a PharmaVoice100 “Change Agent” (2016).
Oxford, UK-headquartered company Vaccitech has appointed Nadège Pelletier, Ph.D., as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO).
Dr. Pelletier is stepping into the role formerly held by Tom Evans, Ph.D., who is retiring but will remain involved as a scientific consultant to the company.
Vaccitech is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of novel immunotherapeutics and vaccines for the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases, autoimmunity and cancer. Dr. Pelletier will lead Vaccitech’s scientific teams across all phases, as well as building and overseeing the strategic technical direction of the company.
Dr. Pelletier brings extensive experience to Vaccitech in the areas of immunology, inflammation and infectious diseases. She joins Vaccitech from the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and prior to that Roche Pharma Research & Early Development, where she served as Project Leader in the fields of autoimmunity, inflammation and infectious diseases.
At Novartis, Dr. Pelletier was a discovery leader in a fast-track, multi-indication early clinical program on tolerance induction, and was responsible for maintaining accountability in building solid preclinical packages, biomarker strategies, and translational plans for disease focus and indication expansion.
Prior to her role at Novartis, Dr. Pelletier was responsible for several preclinical and clinical projects in all phases of development to restore immune balance in autoimmunity and chronic infectious diseases, and was a key contributor to advancing immune modulation strategies for chronic Hepatitis B and respiratory infections.
In addition to her experience with Novartis and Roche, Dr. Pelletier also served as a Senior Scientist at Merck-Serono in Geneva, Switzerland, and as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
Dr. Pelletier holds a Ph.D. in immunology from Claude Bernard University, ENS-Lyon, in Lyon, France and a Master of Science in Genetics and Immunology from ENS-Lyon.
Tallac Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held Californian biopharmaceutical company, has appointed Kevin N. Heller, M.D., as chief medical officer.
The Tallac team has demonstrated pre-clinical proof-of-concept for their novel Toll-like Receptor Agonist Antibody Conjugate (TRAAC) platform approach to engage both the innate and adaptive immunity to treat cancer. It is working on advancing TAC-001, a first-in-class systemic TLR9 agonist and the first TRAAC candidate, into the clinic.
Dr. Heller previously served as executive vice president, research and development at Jasper Therapeutics. Prior to that, he was chief medical officer at NextCure, Inc., a biotechnology company developing immunotherapy-based biologics for cancer and other diseases.
Before that, he was vice president and head of antibody clinical development at Incyte, coordinating immunotherapy clinical development strategies for multiple antibody programs. He joined Incyte from AstraZeneca, where he was senior medical director, overseeing global medicines development in oncology.
Dr. Heller began his biopharma industry experience at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he led early development programs and was responsible for authoring protocols and managing first-in-human clinical trials. His also served as global lead for Oncology Search and Evaluation at BMS, where he was responsible for leading a team matrix across disciplines during due diligence activities and preparing recommendations for possible acquisitions.
Dr. Heller received a Bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and a medical degree from George Washington University. He trained in pediatrics and pediatric hematology/oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Following his fellowship, Dr. Heller joined the faculty of the Rockefeller University as instructor and subsequently chief clinical scholar of Clinical Investigation.
South Korea’s SK bioscience has welcomed Richard Kensinger, PhD, as Vice President of R&D Project Management.
Dr. Kensinger has worked across global biopharma R&D divisions for more than 20 years, and is the former Director and Head of Drug Substance Process Development at Sanofi Pasteur; and former Executive Director of Process Development and Protein Sciences at Affinivax.
He received a Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences at Eastern University and a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Pennsylvania State University.
Dr. Kensinger will take a role in strengthening the company’s global competitiveness, mainly targeting the US market, by improving the manufacturing process to the cGMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) level, the US certification for manufacturing practice.
SK bioscience has also recruited Kenneth Lee, former Head of Commercial Division, Americas of GenScript Probio, as Vice President of Biologic Business Development Department at R&D Center in Pangyo, South Korea.
Starting at Gilead Sciences, Lee worked at various Korean and international biopharmaceutical companies such as CrystalGenomics Inc., BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., Binex Co.,ltd, and Samsung Bioepis, managing R&D, business development, M&A, etc. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Molecular Cell Biology at the University of California Berkeley and an MBA at INSEAD.
Lee will be in charge of developing new biopharmaceutical-driven strategies beyond the vaccine business including a Cellular & Gene Therapy (CGT) field.
The two new appointments follows several others announced in October last year: Dr. Harry Kleanthous, former Senior Program Officer in Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), joined as Executive Vice President of Vaccine R&D Strategy and External Innovation. Dr. Sally Choe, an expert in drug review, clinical pharmacology, and medical product development, was also recruited as Head of Global Clinical Development and Regulatory Affairs.
mRNA specialist CureVac has welcomed Myriam Mendila as its new Chief Development Officer.
Myriam Mendila, MD, has more than 20 years of global experience in product development, medical affairs, pharmacovigilance and healthcare compliance as well as global product strategy, including commercial strategy at Roche, Genentech and Novartis.
Over the last 5 years, she has held the position of Chief Medical Officer Oncology and Global Head of Oncology Medical Affairs at Novartis, being responsible for the Medical Affairs strategy and related activities across the overall oncology portfolio at Novartis. Myriam earned her medical degree and subsequently doctoral degree from the Medical University of Hannover, Germany.
Mendila takes over the role from Klaus Edvardsen, who left the company in June last year. Ulrike Gnad-Vogt, Senior Vice President Area Head Oncology, has been acting as interim Chief Development Officer.