J&J, Vir Biotechnology and Ocugen are among the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
J&J, Vir Biotechnology and Ocugen are among the companies welcoming new faces to top jobs.
Johnson & Johnson has appointed John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., to the company’s executive committee as Executive Vice President of Pharmaceuticals, R&D.
Dr. Reed will join Johnson & Johnson on April 3, 2023, assuming responsibility for the company’s portfolio from William Hait, M.D., Ph.D., who has served as interim head of Johnson & Johnson’s Pharmaceutical R&D organization since August 2022.
Dr. Reed joins J&J from Sanofi - where he was the company’s R&D head for four years - and brings with him 35 years of biomedical research leadership.
Prior to Sanofi, Dr. Reed served as Global Head of Pharmaceutical Research & Early Development at Roche, where he was also a member of the company’s Executive Committee, and CEO of a large, independent, non-profit biomedical research institute in La Jolla, California.
Dr. Reed has authored more than 900 research publications and invented over 130 patents. He was recognized among the top 10 most cited researchers in life sciences and medicine for a decade and still ranks among the world’s top 100 most highly cited scientists.
Dr. Reed is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He trained in Molecular Biology at the Wistar Institute and in Clinical Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the recipient of numerous honors and awards.
Sanofi is conducting an internal and external search for its next R&D head. In the meantime, Dr. Dietmar Berger has agreed to take the leadership of the team ad interim. Dr. Berger has been serving as Chief Medical Officer and Global Head of Development since he joined Sanofi in 2019, after an extensive and successful career at various other pharmaceutical companies including Genentech, Bayer and Amgen.
Cartesian Therapeutics, a biopharma company pioneering RNA cell therapy for autoimmune diseases and cancer, has appointed Christopher M. Jewell, PhD/MS as Chief Scientific Officer.
Dr. Jewell’s predecessor, Michael Singer, MD, PhD, has been named Chairman of the Board and Chief Strategy Officer.
Dr. Jewell is a leader in the immune engineering and nanotechnology fields. Over the past decade at the University of Maryland as the MPower Professor and Minta Martin Professor, he secured over $25m in funding and published 125 manuscripts and patents, including papers in Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Materials, and others.
Dr. Jewell has received over 50 awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). He is also an elected fellow of numerous professional societies. Dr. Jewell’s translational medicine skills benefit from his experience at Boston Consulting Group and as an advisor to dozens of drugmakers over the past 15 years.
Cartesian’s lead asset, Descartes-08, is a RNA-engineered chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (rCAR-T) in Phase 2b clinical development for patients with generalized myasthenia gravis. Cartesian operates a wholly owned, state-of-the-art cGMP manufacturing facility in Gaithersburg, MD.
Exothera, a CDMO specializing in gene therapy, vaccines, and oncolytic viruses, has appointed Darren Leva as Chief Business Officer.
Leva’s extensive commercial experience in biotherapeutics CDMOs will further extend Exothera’s business and commercial capability across existing and brand-new markets.
Leva brings 20 years of broad commercial expertise to Exothera from a range of experiences with CDMOs, therapeutics, and software companies. Most recently, he held leadership positions in Cell and Gene Therapy at Thermo Fisher Scientific while also being deeply involved in the manufacturing response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As Head of Commercial Operations, he helped build and lead both GMP Plasmid and GMP Cell Therapy businesses.
Prior to joining Thermo Fisher, Leva held various commercial roles at several start-ups and growth-stage companies, including IntroMaps, Althea Technologies (now Ajinomoto), Cerimon Pharmaceuticals, and Seven Bridges Genomics.
In his new role at Exothera, Leva will leverage his experience in scaling cell and gene therapy businesses to help Exothera accelerate its growth in viral vector manufacturing.
Scancell Holdings, a developer of novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and infectious disease, has appointed Dr Jean-Michel Cosséry, as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors with immediate effect.
As previously announced, Dr John Chiplin - who has served as Chairman since 2016 - will step down following Cosséry’s appointment.
Cosséry will seek to drive Scancell’s strategy for clinical progress and commercial development of its novel immunotherapy vaccine and antibody platforms. He brings more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and a sustained global track record of success in commercial operations as well as in capital raising, US and European public offerings, business development and M&A.
Cosséry was Vice President for North America Oncology at Eli Lilly, with responsibility for commercialisation of the company’s oncology portfolio. Preceding this US-based position, he was Vice President and Managing Director of the Eli Lilly’s European Northern Hub, where he was Chair of the Eli Lilly UK Board and a member of Lilly European Executive Committee. Prior to this Jean-Michel served as VP and Chief Marketing Officer at GE Healthcare’s Global Headquarters.
Following his retirement from Eli Lilly in 2018, Cosséry served on the board of Kymab until their acquisition by Sanofi. He was also a member of the Immunocore board prior to the company’s Nasdaq listing. He currently serves on the boards of Malin PLC, Exact Therapeutics AS, Eracal Therapeutics and Sophia Genetics SA. He has also been Chair of The American Pharmaceutical Group in the UK, as well as a board member of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry.
Cosséry holds an MBA from the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University), The Netherlands, as well as a PharmD and a PhD in Nuclear Chemistry and Neurobiology from University Paris, France.
Ocugen, a biotech focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing novel gene and cell therapies and vaccines, has appointed Quan A. Vu as Chief Business Officer, responsible for securing new business development partnerships, including in/out licensing opportunities, across the company’s pipeline.
Vu has 20 years of hands-on healthcare business executive experience with an emphasis on corporate and business development, strategy, and finance. He possesses a demonstrated history of prospecting, evaluating, structuring, and closing transactions that augment both organizational and shareholder value.
Prior to joining Ocugen, he served as Chief Operating Officer/Chief Business Officer for 180 Life Sciences, where he was responsible for formulating the company’s corporate strategy, ensuring operational efficiency, executing business development initiatives, and securing additional financing and capital markets support. Since 2019, he has also provided interim CFO/CBO/CEO consulting services through his own consulting firm, Melius BioPharma Consulting.
Vu began his career in healthcare investment banking and then held leadership roles of increasing responsibility at Opiant Pharmaceuticals, Impax Laboratories, Anthem, and Amgen. He obtained his BA in Economics from UCLA, graduating summa cum laude with College Honors and Economics Departmental Honors.
Vir Biotechnology has appointed Sung Lee as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective March 27.
The appointment follows the resignation of Howard Horn, who will leave the company after a brief transition period.
Lee is an experienced CFO who brings more than 20 years of finance leadership expertise in biopharmaceutical and technology businesses to Vir. He began his career in the tax advisory business at PwC, and later spent 14 years at Gilead Sciences, where he served in roles of increasing responsibility and scope, ultimately leading the company’s global financial planning and analysis, and investor relations functions. He has since served as CFO of Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc., and, most recently, served as CFO of MorphoSys AG. He received a Master of Business Taxation degree from the University of Southern California and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of California, Irvine.
Vir Biotechnology is a commercial-stage immunology company: with its pipeline including product candidates targeting COVID-19, hepatitis B and hepatitis D viruses, influenza A and human immunodeficiency virus.
