Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Fraiser Kansteiner, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Eli Lilly, ramping up COVID-19 antibody production, bids goodbye to longtime manufacturing chief
Eli Lilly
Myles O'Neill, manufacturing chief, and Melissa Barnes, chief ethics and compliance officer, are retiring.
Near 19-year Lilly veteran O'Neill is set to retire May 2, with senior vice president of global parenteral drug product and device manufacturing, Edgardo Hernandez, poised to pick up the baton. "Myles added to the strong foundation of Lilly manufacturing through his leadership of numerous productivity initiatives, the initiation of our new site in North Carolina and, most recently, by successfully navigating the challenges of manufacturing during the global pandemic,” CEO David Ricks said in a release. Pfizer vet Hernandez joined Lilly in 2005, advancing through several roles in engineering services and manufacturing strategy before settling into his current position overseeing Lilly’s parenteral and device manufacturing network, plus the company’s global supply chain. Meanwhile, chief ethics and compliance officer Barnes will retire on June 27 after more than 26 years with the company. VP and deputy general counsel Alonzo Weems will step in to take her place. Fierce Pharma
Slaoui’s Centessa adds ex-FDA commish Califf, biotech bigwigs to its board
Centessa Pharmaceuticals
Gregory Weinhoff, M.D., signs on as chief financial officer.
Weinhoff joins Moncef Slaoui's Centessa as chief financial officer, arriving from Arvelle Therapeutics, the Axovant spinout he co-founded and where he served as chief financial and chief business officer. Meanwhile, the company has added former FDA commissioner, Robert Califf, M.D., former Tesaro chief operating officer, Mary Lynne Hedley, Ph.D., and CRISPR Therapeutics CEO Samarth Kulkarni, Ph.D., to its board. Centessa’s pipeline includes efforts such as monoclonal antibodies for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and systemic sclerosis, developed by Capella BioScience, and small-molecule degraders of STAT3 and STAT5, brought in by Janpix, for the treatment of blood cancers. Fierce Biotech
Ex-Intercept CMO Campagna lands at immune regulation biotech Q32
Q32 Bio
Jason Campagna, M.D., Ph.D., comes on board as chief medical officer.
Campagna signs on at immune regulation biotech Q32 after a stint at Intercept that saw him rise to the role of CMO. Campagna joined Intercept in 2016 to lead its global nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) program. He took over as CMO in 2019 and departs after Intercept suffered a regulatory setback in Nash. Q32, meanwhile, uncloaked last May, when it disclosed a previously closed $46 million series A round led by Atlas Venture. The biotech plans to advance a pipeline featuring an anti-IL-7R antibody. Months later, Q32 raised a $60 million series B co-led by OrbiMed Advisors and Acorn Bioventures and started dosing healthy volunteers with the IL-7R candidate ADX-914. Fierce Pharma
> ApiJect Systems has signed on Raymond Guidotti as chief operating officer from March 1. Since 2009, he's held a variety of executive leadership roles with Patheon Pharmaceuticals and Thermo Fisher Scientific, which acquired Patheon in August 2017. Most recently, Guidotti served as group VP of global engineering, capacity planning and technical/operations services for Thermo Fisher Scientific's Pharma Services group. Release
> Sagimet Biosciences tapped Eduardo Bruno Martins, M.D., as chief medical officer. Martins comes on board with experience in hepatology, vaccines, allergy and immunology, orphan diseases, and oncology, from translational research to Phase 4 clinical studies. Martins will be on deck to help the company advance its nonalcoholic steatohepatitis prospect, a FASN inhibitor dubbed TVB-2640. Release
> Gene therapy company AavantiBio has enlisted Ty Howton as chief operating officer and general counsel. Howton joins from Sarepta, where he most recently served as EVP, general counsel and corporate secretary. Prior to that, Howton was SVP, chief legal officer and a member of Vertex Pharmaceuticals' executive team. Release
> Clinical-stage biopharma Axial Therapeutics has promoted A. Stewart Campbell, Ph.D., to the role of chief executive officer. Campbell will also join the company's board of directors. He joined Axial in 2016, most recently serving as senior vice president of research and development. Before joining Axial, Campbell held various leadership roles at biopharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing companies including Ancora/CordenPharma, Surface Logix and Insmed. Release
> Healthcare platform provider H1 has named Julie Stern senior vice president of engineering and chief information security officer. At the company, Stern will oversee H1's more than 60-person engineering team. Before joining H1, Stern was chief technology officer at HealthReveal, where she oversaw significant AI, architecture, and organizational changes to drive scale. She's also served as CTO at healthcare technology companies including Accolade and Vesta Healthcare and was the co-founder and CTO of kConciergeMD. Release
> Asklepios BioPharmaceutical has tapped Guru Ramamurthy as chief financial officer. Ramamurthy worked with Bayer for the past 20 years and most recently served as the global finance lead for the company's oncology franchise from January 2020 through February 2021. From 2016 through 2019, he was CFO of the North American business at Bayer Consumer Health.