Changing Faces

September brought numerous noteworthy appointments to boards of directors and advisory boards in the pharma, biotech, and agency worlds. These new faces bring experience and expertise, not to mention clout, to their respective companies. Read on for the full list.

ARTIDIS adds historic public servant to Board. A heavy hitter in infectious disease policy has joined the board of ARTIDIS, a clinical stage tech company focused on rapid tissue analysis and therapy optimisation. Dr Julie Louise Gerberding was the first woman to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control, as well as leading the vaccine division at Merck for 11 years. She currently serves as president of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

Notable digital health investor joins Closed Loop as Chair. Luba Greenwood, a noted life sciences and health tech investor, has joined Closed Loop Medicine as chair of the Board of Directors. Greenwood founded the first-ever VC fund for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and has held leadership positions at Verily and Roche. Pharmaphorum caught up with Greenwood to talk about her new gig at LSX in September.

Broken String Biosciences strengthens Board. Broken String Biosciences, a Cambridge, UK-based genomics company, has added Laurence Reid and Brad Crutchfield to its Board. Reid, a seasoned biotech entrepreneur, executive, and investor, previously served as CEO at Decibel Therapeutics and Warp Drive Bio. Crutchfield most recently held the position of chief commercial officer at 10x Genomics, where he supported the company through its 2019 IPO.

Roche vet joins two boards. Dr Paulo Fontoura, former global head of neuroscience at Roche, took on two different appointments in September. He joined Harness Therapeutics as chief scientific and clinical development advisor and STALICLA as a non-executive director. Harness Therapeutics is a UK biotech treating neurodegenerative diseases via protein upregulation, while STALICLA is a Swiss precision biotech company working on neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.

MERGE announces new Chair. MERGE, a Chicago-based integrated technology and marketing services provider, has a new board chair in Jim Weiss. As founder and chairman of Real Chemistry, Weiss oversaw significant growth. At MERGE, he’ll focus on guiding how the agency leverages AI, data, and analytics for client service.

Four more Chair appointments. Four other biotech companies saw a change in the top board seat.

Johan Cardoen, former CEO of CropDesign, has been appointed chairman of reMYND, a Belgian biotech developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr Edwin Moses, an experienced entrepreneur and executive, has been named chairman of NanoSyrinx, a UK synthetic biology company. Moses currently serves as chair of Achilles Therapeutics, LabGenius, and Avantium.
Dr Mark Perry-Billings, the former global head of drug development at Chiesi Pharmaceuticals, has been appointed chair of the board at Synairgen, a UK company focused on treatments for severe viral lung infections. He succeeds Simon Shaw, who is retiring.
Tim Edwards, currently the chair of several companies including Schroders Capital Global Innovation Trust and Storm Therapeutics, has joined SENISCA as chair of the board. SENISCA is a UK RNA therapeutics spinout from the University of Exeter. Edwards succeeds the late Dr David Chiswell.

Biotechs stack boards with pharma vets. We saw several more Board of Director appointments of note before we get into the various advisory appointments.

Dr Michael Vasconcelles, a senior advisor to the Life Sciences team at Frazier Healthcare Partners, has joined the board of Kura Oncology, a San Diego clinical stage precision medicine company in the cancer space. His extensive background includes leadership positions at ImmunoGen, Flatiron Health, Takeda, and Genzyme/Sanofi.
DiogenX, a French company focused on regenerating insulin-producing beta cells for diabetes treatment, has added Eleanor L. Ramos to its board. Ramos has served as chief medical officer at several biotechs, most recently Provention Bio.
Enoch Kariuki, most recently CEO of Lengo Therapeutics, has been appointed non-executive director at Pheon Therapeutics, a London biotech developing new antibody-drug conjugates for hard-to-treat cancers.
The founder of Luxtera and Helixis, Dr Alex Dickinson, has joined the board of Sphere Fluidics, a Cambridge-based manufacturer of microfluidic tools for cell therapy.
Ricardo Carbucicchio, CEO of NTC Pharma, has joined the Board of Directors at Helsinn Group, a Switzerland-based global pharma specialising in supportive care, oncology, and dermato-oncology.
Finally, ortho expert and serial entrepreneur Lisa Ferrara has joined the board of Renovos Biologics, a UK regenerative medicine company focused on orthobiologics, as a non-executive director.

Cidara adds advisors with a range of backgrounds. Cidara Therapeutics, a San Diego biotech, has expanded its scientific advisory board with a mix of voices from the worlds of government, non-profits, finance, and academia. The new appointees are Rick Bright, the former CEO of the Pandemic Prevention Institute at The Rockefeller Foundation; Dr Philip Krause, a 30-year veteran of the US FDA; Mario Barro, venture partner and head of the infectious disease team at RA Capital Management; and Dr Frederick Hayden, Professor Emeritus of Clinical Virology and Medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

Two professors join Secarna as advisors. Secarna Pharmaceuticals, a Munich biopharma, has expanded its advisory board with the addition of Dr Alexander M. M. Eggermont and Dr Alfred Zippelius. Eggermont is Professor of Clinical and Translational Immunotherapy at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, and Zippelius is Professor of Translational Oncology at the University of Basel in Switzerland.

PulseSight assembles international advisory board. PulseSight Therapeutics, a Paris-based ophthalmology-focused biotech, has formed a new scientific and clinical advisory board, bringing experts from around the world in ophthalmology and retinal research. Here’s the line-up:

Chair Frank G. Holz, Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Bonn, Germany.
Dr Francine Behar-Cohen, Professor of Ophthalmology at Cochin Hospital, Paris, director of research at INSERM, and Professor at the University of Paris Cité, France
Dr Joshua Dunaief, Adele Niessen Professor of Ophthalmology at The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Robyn Guymer, deputy director and head of macular research at CERA (Centre for Eye Research Australia) in Melbourne, Australia, Professor of Ophthalmology at Melbourne University, and senior retinal specialist at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.
Dr Eleonora Lad, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and vice chair, clinical research at the Duke Eye Center in North Carolina.

Five more advisory appointments. Finally, a few more advisory board appointments fill out our round-up for September.

Baroness Nicola Blackwood, a UK health innovation leader, has joined the scientific advisory board of the Oxford-Harrington Rare Disease Centre, a research partnership between the University of Oxford and Harrington Discovery Institute.
Sebastian Probst, a globally recognised authority in wound care, has joined the advisory board of Polaroid Therapeutics, a Swiss start-up focused on antimicrobial technology.
Dr Carl Wittwer, co-founder of Idaho Technologies and a pioneer in molecular diagnostics, has joined the advisory board of Inbiome, a diagnostics company combining molecular technologies with AI for infectious disease solutions.
Amy DuRoss, former CEO of Vineti, has joined the board of Kosten Digital, a developer of custom AI and digital solutions for healthcare.
Dr Riad Salem, Chief of Interventional Radiology at Northwestern University, has joined the advisory board of TriSalus, a Denver-based medtech company developing new drug delivery devices for oncology.

That’s it for September’s edition of Changing Faces. We didn’t have quite enough agency and investor hires this time around, so we’ll save the ones we did collect for October. Remember, if you have a hire you want to see highlighted or, especially, a new board member to brag about, you can reach out to editorial@pharmaphorum.com.