Changing Faces: Pharma and biotech, March 2026

A broad mix of senior leadership and scientific and commercial appointments shaped last month’s pharma and biotech hiring activity, with companies strengthening capabilities across AI, business development, R&D, and more.

Read on for the highlights from March.

Lundbeck strengthens AI leadership. Danish biopharma Lundbeck appointed Markus Kede as SVP and chief AI officer. He previously served as SVP finance and business planning for Lundbeck US, where he led strategic and financial performance and chaired the US Digital and AI Strategy Committee. This move underscores the company’s focus on embedding digital and AI capabilities across its brain health portfolio.

Ipsen pulls new North America president from biotech. France-based global biopharmaceutical company Ipsen brought in Michelle C Werner as EVP and president, North America. Werner joins from Alltrna, where she had served as president and CEO since 2022, and brings more than 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience that began at Bristol Myers Squibb. Ipsen focuses on oncology, rare disease, and neuroscience.

ReAlta Life Sciences builds out executive team. Inflammatory disease-focused ReAlta Life Sciences made two senior appointments: Howard Berman was named Chair and CEO, having previously served as CEO of Coya Therapeutics, while Kia Motesharei joined as president and chief operating officer. He brings experience across corporate development, licensing, and investor relations from roles at Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Formation Bio, Akcea Therapeutics, Merck KGaA, Dyax, and GENFIT.

Commit Biologics appoints new CEO. Aarhus University spin-out Commit Biologics, a Danish firm focused on cancer and immune diseases, named Thomas L. F. Montgomery Andresen as CEO. Andresen is a serial biotech entrepreneur with more than 20 years’ experience.

IsomAb names cardiology-focused CEO. UK biotech IsomAb appointed Dr Philip Brainin as CEO. A physician-scientist trained in clinical cardiology, he brings experience spanning cardiovascular medicine, clinical research, and venture investing across EU and US biotech companies. IsomAb is focused on chronic stable angina and other ischaemic conditions.

Business development hires across biopharma. Several companies strengthened their business and commercial leadership last month.

• Karen Basbaum joined MBX Biosciences as chief business officer, following her role as SVP of business development at Poseida Therapeutics. MBX focuses on precision peptide therapies for endocrine and metabolic disorders.
• Alchemab appointed Ulrich Wendt as chief business officer. He previously served as global head of business development immunology at Sanofi, where he led BD efforts across diabetes, primary care, and cardiometabolic disease.
• Skyhawk, a UK firm focused on small molecule RNA-modulating therapies, named Aaron Deves as chief commercial officer. He brings experience from Teva Pharmaceuticals where he served as SVP, COO, and head of marketing for the US specialty business.
  
   
• Tim Foley took on the mantle of chief commercial officer at computational drug discovery company Deep Origin, following a career that included founding Scout Life Sciences and leading business development at Takeda and Astellas on more than $16B in transactions.

Three new biotech CFOs. March also saw a number of new appointments to the chief financial officer role.

• Kalohexis, a clinical‑stage biotech harnessing the melanocortin system to advance metabolic disease care, welcomed Tony Mitchell as CFO. He joins from COUR Pharmaceuticals, where he served as VP and controller and led IPO readiness efforts.
• Argo Biopharma, a Chinese biotech focused on small interfering RNA therapeutics, brought on Gena Wang as CFO and chief strategy officer. Wang joins from Barclays, where she served as managing director and senior equity research analyst covering the biotechnology sector.
• Beacon Therapeutics, a London‑ and Massachusetts‑based clinical‑stage biotech with a mission to save and restore vision in patients with blinding retinal diseases, recruited Ryan Robinson as CFO. He previously served as CFO and treasurer of Tourmaline Bio, which was acquired by Novartis in October 2025 for $1.4 billion.

Medical, scientific, and R&D leadership. Several biotechs also built up the scientific side of their C-Suite and company leadership.

• Ratio Therapeutics, a Boston‑based biotech focused on targeted radiotherapy, welcomed Colin Hayward as chief medical officer. He brings radiopharmaceutical expertise from Telix Pharmaceuticals, where he led medical affairs and clinical development teams.
• Absci Corporation, a clinical‑stage biopharma advancing therapeutics designed with generative AI, tapped Dr Ransi Somaratne as CMO. He joined from Vertex Pharmaceuticals after holding senior scientific leadership roles at BioMarin Pharmaceutical and Amgen.
• Proxygen, a biotech developing molecular glue degraders and next‑generation proximity‑based therapeutics, recruited Chiara Conti as chief scientific officer. She joined from Blueprint Medicines, where she identified four development candidates over seven years.
• French biotech Vect‑Horus, which designs vectors to enable targeted delivery of therapeutic and imaging agents to tumours, welcomed Claudia Fromond as director of R&D. She brings more than 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience from roles at Advesa, OSE Immunotherapeutics, Ablynx–Sanofi, and Inventiva.

Helus Pharma strengthens people leadership. Clinical-stage pharma company Helus Pharma welcomed Jill Conwell as chief people officer, tapping a seasoned HR leader with deep experience across biotech and pharma. Conwell previously held senior people leadership roles at Aclaris Therapeutics, Idera Pharmaceuticals, and Shire Pharmaceuticals, where she worked closely with executive teams and boards during periods of growth and organisational change.

NervGen Pharma adds regulatory and patient advocacy expertise. NervGen Pharma brought on two senior leaders to reinforce its regulatory strategy and patient engagement capabilities. The clinical-stage biopharma recruited Shamim Ruff as chief regulatory affairs officer, following her tenure at Stoke Therapeutics, where she led regulatory strategy and quality assurance for the company’s RNA medicine platform. NervGen also welcomed Christine McSherry as SVP, patient advocacy and clinical affairs. McSherry previously co-founded Casimir, a clinical research organisation that works across more than 20 rare diseases to capture and quantify patient and caregiver perceptions of treatment benefit.

Nautilus Biotechnology taps sales leader. Seattle-based Nautilus Biotechnology tapped Amber Faust as VP of sales, strengthening its commercial leadership as it continues to develop single-molecule proteome analysis technologies. Faust held roles of increasing responsibility at Olink Proteomics, SomaLogic, and Waters Corporation.

That’s it for our biopharma 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.