Changing Faces – Digital and supplier hires – March 2025

Digital
Digital selection of person

March was a light month across the board for hires news, but the digital and supplier sectors in biopharma saw a spat of notable appointments.

New CEO takes the helm at Evidation. Evidation, a California-based company that helps pharma companies collect real-world evidence (RWE) by connecting them directly with millions of volunteer patients through an app, has hired within for a new CEO, Leslie Oley Wilberforce. Wilberforce, who has served as president and chief operating officer at Evidation since 2015, replaces Christine Lemke, who will continue as an advisor and board member.

Gene sequencing products company taps new CFO. Jim Gibson has joined PacBio as chief financial officer. Gibson comes from Sequoia, a strategic compensation and benefits solutions provider, where he served as CFO across four entities. PacBio is a California firm that designs, develops, and manufactures advanced sequencing products to help scientists and clinical researchers resolve genetically complex problems.

Indian CMO/CDMO welcomes new scientific leadership. Aragen Life Sciences, a Hyderabad-based R&D and manufacturing solutions provider to the global life sciences industries, has made two key appointments:

  • Dr Manjunath Ramarao has been named chief scientific officer and EVP, integrated drug discovery. Ramarao previously served as CSO at Atomic AI and Ribometrix Inc in the US.
  • Jayadeva Sajankila has been appointed VP and head of chemical solutions. Sajankila was most recently head of project and portfolio management and chemical development at Syngene.

Two CDMOs add to C-Suite. The manufacturing sector saw a pair of business and commercial hires at the C-Suite level.

  • Kieron Hall has been appointed chief commercial officer at Sygnature Discovery, an integrated drug discovery contract research organisation based in the UK and Canada. In his most recent role as CCO at Quotient Sciences, Hall successfully led the commercial team through multiple rounds of private equity-backed growth and acquisitions.
  • Taylor Boyd is in as chief business officer at Abzena, a San Diego CDMO and CRO focused on bioconjugates and complex biologics. Boyd most recently served as head of business development at Longboard Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for mergers and acquisitions, transactions, and partnerships. Prior to Longboard, he was the vice president of investor relations at Oxford Biomedica.

Rentschler Biopharma promotes strategy-focused VP. Rentschler Biopharma has named Robert Panting VP for global client programme management and strategy. Panting joined Rentschler Biopharma from Fujifilm Diosynth in 2021 as general manager of Rentschler ATMP, where he led the establishment of a Centre of Excellence for Cell and Gene Therapy. Rentschler Biopharma is a German CDMO with offices in Massachusetts and the UK.

That’s it for our digital and supplier hires, but stay tuned for our other hires round-ups and remember, you can send your own hires to editorial@pharmaphorum.com for inclusion in this column.