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 Kyle LaHucik, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
GlaxoSmithKline attempts to shore up vaccines unit by snagging Pfizer viral vaccines head
GlaxoSmithKline
Phil Dormitzer, M.D., Ph.D., is the new global head of vaccine R&D at GSK.
He joins the British Big Pharma after serving as VP and chief scientific officer of RNA and viral vaccines at rival Pfizer. His hiring comes after a host of vaccine research staffers have left GSK over the past year. While at Pfizer, Dormitzer worked on the company's COVID vaccine, partnered with BioNTech, as well as an experimental RSV vaccine and early RNA work in influenza. Now, he'll shore up work on COVID. Fierce Biotech
Johnson & Johnson's Janssen loses cell therapy platform leader to new biotech Parthenon
Parthenon Therapeutics
Tamas Oravecz, Ph.D., is now chief scientific officer of nascent biotech Parthenon Therapeutics.
Oravecz spent less than a year as global head of cell therapy platform and discovery at Johnson & Johnson's Janssen. He'll now be CSO at the newly minted cancer biotech Parthenon. He worked on HIV cell and gene therapies earlier in his career at Novartis. Oravecz also had a 14-year stint at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals and a shorter time at Celgene. Fierce Biotech
Rafael's management shake-up sees five executives leave and telecom tycoon back in the CEO spot
Rafael Holdings
Howard Jonas is back in the CEO perch at Rafael.
Five executives have planned to depart Rafael, a holding company for drug developer Rafael Pharmaceuticals, after it reported the failure of a phase 3 drug in October. The telecom tycoon Howard Jonas, who set up Rafael and has previously served as CEO, is back in the top post. Fierce Biotech
> Shankar Narayanan is the new CEO of pharma and healthcare marketing comms agency Real Chemistry after serving as COO of payer analytics firm Equian. He replaces Jim Weiss, who has been at the top since forming the company 20 years ago. Fierce Pharma
> Burkhard Blank, M.D., is leaving his post as chief medical officer at Acorda Therapeutics to helm the same job at Pharnext as well as head its R&D. Fierce Biotech
> BD named a slate of management changes: Ex-Medtronic VP Francesca DeMartino will be the new SVP of investor relations as Kristen Stewart steps into the SVP of enterprise strategy and insights role. Also joining the company is Joseph Smith, M.D., Ph.D., as chief scientific officer and SVP after serving as CEO at Reflexion Health and Digital Health Corp. Fierce MedTech | Fierce MedTech
> Lihua Yu, Ph.D., is the new chief data officer and Keith Orford, M.D., Ph.D., is the new CMO and EVP of clinical translational science at FogPharma. Yu joins from H3 Biomedicine, where she was president and CDO, and Orford was previously CMO at Calithera Biosciences. Release
> Erin Brubaker is the new chief operating officer of Code Biotherapeutics after holding the VP of corporate development post at Passage Bio. Release
> Jullian Jones, Ph.D., has been promoted to chief business officer of Monte Rosa Therapeutics after holding the SVP and head of business development post. Release
> Better Therapeutics named Deepti Sodhi Jaggi its chief strategy officer after serving as global head of patent insights and solutions at Astellas Pharma. Release
> A-Alpha Bio selected Padma Kodukula to be its chief business officer after leading strategy and business development at Precision NanoSystems, acquired by Danaher in June. Release
> David Giarracco is the new CEO of Noninvasix. Release
> Connect Biopharma Holdings named Steven Chan its CFO he held the same post at Delphon Industries. Release
> Allison Dorval is the new CFO of Verve Therapeutics after leading finance and accounting functions at Voyager Therapeutics. Release
> Alex van Belkum, Ph.D., is the new chief scientific officer of BaseClear after a decade at bioMerieux. Release
> Charmaine Lykins is the new chief commercial officer of Karuna Therapeutics after serving as SVP of global product planning and chief marketing officer for Acadia. Release
> Pardes Biosciences named Philippe Tinmouth as its chief business and strategy officer after serving as VP and head of business development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Release
> Carmel Lynch, Ph.D., is the new chief development officer at Adcendo, and Pernille Høyrup Hemmingsen, Ph.D., joins as chief technology officer. Release
> Matti Karvonen left Faron Pharmaceuticals as chief medical officer, a post that will be filled on an interim basis by Chief Development Officer Juho Jalkanen. Release
> Andreas Grauer, M.D., is now chief medical officer and Jessie Richardson, Ph.D., is now general counsel at Federation Bio. Grauer joins from Corcept Therapeutics, where he was CMO, and Richardson joins from PACT Pharma, where she was VP of legal. Release
> Healthy.io named Heather Getz its CFO and president of North America after serving as chief financial and administrative officer at BioTelemetry. Release
> Gilles Della Corte, M.D., is leaving Relief Therapeutics as CMO to pursue opportunities elsewhere and is being replaced by Nermeen Varawalla, M.D., Ph.D. Relief also promoted Jeremy Meinen to chief accounting officer and Marco Marotta to chief business officer. Release
> Praxis Precision Medicines made a slew of leadership moves. Megan Sniecinski is now chief business officer; Alyssa Wyant was promoted to chief regulatory and quality officer; Karl Hansen, Ph.D., was promoted to chief technical operations officer; and Chief Scientific Officer Steven Petrou, Ph.D., is fully committing his time to Praxis after stepping down as director at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. Release