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.
Johnson & Johnson's chief scientific officer Stoffels to depart around same time as CEO Gorsky
Johnson & Johnson
Paul Stoffels, M.D., will retire at the end of this year from his post as chief scientific officer.
His nine-year stint in the post helped rejuvenate R&D and lead to a doubling of pharma sales from 2009 to 2020 with the introduction of blockbuster drugs like Darzalex and Imbruvica. Stoffels also helped create J&J Innovation, which has incubated more than 700 companies. His successor was not named. Stoffels will depart around the same time as CEO Alex Gorsky. Fierce Biotech
Ensoma snags Nuwaysir, Bayer's BlueRock chairman and chair of Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, as its CEO
Ensoma
Emile Nuwaysir, Ph.D., is adding the CEO post back to his resume just two months after shedding the title.
He is now in the chief post at in vivo gene therapy biotech Ensoma after leading Bayer's $1 billion Parkinson's bet into human testing earlier this summer. Nuwaysir is still chair of BlueRock Therapeutics, the biotech behind that effort, and is also chair of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. That's an organization bringing together more than 400 cell and gene therapy biopharmas. Fierce Biotech
Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research's oncology unit poaches Genentech's Malek for cancer research
Novartis
Shiva Malek, Ph.D., will lead cancer research at Novartis' NIBR.
Malek jumps from Roche's Genentech, where she was vice president of discovery oncology for the past six months after working in cancer research at the pharma for more than 15 years. While there, Malek helped create the small molecule drug discovery team. At Novartis' NIBR, Malek takes on the global head of oncology role at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, "innovation engine." The innovation engine has been stalled in recent months with the departures of leaders Jeff Engelman, M.D., Ph.D., Peter Hammerman, M.D., Ph.D., and Gopi Shanker, Ph.D. Fierce Biotech
> Marc Cohen and Malcolm Salter have left the board of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute over a U-turn on the group's stance on allowing trustees to invest in its startups. Fierce Biotech
> Kojin Therapeutics further rounded out its executive team with the hiring of Luba Greenwood as CEO. Greenwood is a board member of multiple biotechs and is a managing partner at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Release
> Theresa Heah, M.D., is the new chief medical officer and president of Kriya Therapeutics new ophthalmology unit. Heah comes from AsclepiX Therapeutics, where she was CMO and executive vice president of operations. Release
> John Shiver, Ph.D., was named chief strategy officer, and Tong-Ming Fu, M.D., Ph.D., becomes chief scientific officer of IGM Biosciences to help lead the new infectious disease business unit. Shiver joins from Sanofi Pasteur, where he was senior vice president of vaccine R&D; Fu also joined from Sanofi Pasteur, where he was head of vaccine research for North America. IGM also named Mary Beth Harler, M.D., as president to lead the new autoimmunity and inflammation unit. Harler was most recently SVP and head of immunology and fibrosis development at Bristol Myers Squibb. Release
> ChemoCentryx's newest chief medical officer and EVP is Rita Jain, M.D., who joins from Immunovant, where she held the CMO post. Release
> Laura Johnson, Ph.D., steps into the chief scientific officer role at Verismo Therapeutics after leading preclinical translational research at GlaxoSmithKline's oncology unit. Release
> David Langer, M.D., becomes chief medical officer of Longeviti Neuro Solutions after serving as chair of the neurosurgery unit at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Release
> ReForm Biologics promoted Robert Mahoney, Ph.D., to chief scientific officer and elevated Kevin Kavanaugh to chief financial officer. Release
> Blake Aftab, Ph.D., was promoted to chief scientific officer and senior vice president at Adicet Bio. Release
> Poseida Therapeutics promoted Johanna Mylet to chief financial officer; Devon Shedlock, Ph.D., was elevated to chief scientific officer of cell therapies; Kristin Martin became its new chief people and administration officer; and Lisa Portale was appointed to the post of senior VP of regulatory affairs. Release
> John Choi will be VP of regulatory affairs at Ambys Medicines after handling the same functions at Platelet BioGenesis. Release
> Dymeka Harrison left the post of vice president of global strategic marketing at Abbott to be chief commercial officer of Foundation Medicine. Release
> Science 37 hired Elisa Cascade as chief product officer and promoted Chris Ceppi to chief technology officer. Cascade joins from ERT, where she was EVP for electronic clinical outcomes assessments. Release
> Mari Scheiffele will fill the EVP and president role of Ipsen's specialty care international unit as of Nov. 1. She joins from Novartis, where she was general manager for the Big Pharma's oncology units in the U.K. and Ireland. Release
> Mati Gill, formerly head of government affairs at Teva Pharmaceuticals, will be CEO of AION Labs, a new innovation lab focused on artificial intelligence and therapeutic challenges. AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer and Teva launched the alliance. Release
> Coya Therapeutics named Gene Mack its chief financial officer after Mack served in the same role at OncoC4. Release
> Caris Life Sciences hired Andreas Tsukada as SVP and president of Japanese operations and head of international. Tsukada was previously general manager and representative director for Japanese operations at Guardant. Release
> Gareth Walters, Ph.D., will be the first chief regulatory officer at Synairgen after leading global regulatory affairs at Chugai Pharmaceuticals. Release
> Excision BioTherapeutics named three key leaders: Sara Turken as general counsel, Manish Anand as senior vice president of regulatory affairs and Robert Gunning as controller and VP. Turken was head of legal at Rocket Pharmaceuticals; Anand joined from Bayer's AskBio, where he held the same post; and Gunning held the CFO post at Advanced Accelerator Application, a Novartis subsidiary. Release
> Timothy Hunt was named chief culture and corporate affairs officer of Xilio Therapeutics after serving in the chief corporate affairs post at Editas Medicine. Release
> Quantori hired Steve Labkoff, M.D., as global head of clinical and healthcare informatics after serving in the chief data officer role at nonprofit Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. Release
> Theresa Bak-Thomsen, Ph.D., was promoted to director of discovery biologics at Novo Nordisk's research center in Seattle.
> Brendan Smith will be the chief financial officer of CRISPR Therapeutics after holding the same post at Translate Bio, which recently sold to Sanofi for $3.2 billion. Smith replaces Michael Tomsicek, who retires at year-end. Release
> Jason Haas will be chief financial officer of Syros Pharmaceuticals after being co-head of healthcare investment banking for the Americas at Barclays. Release
> MiNA Therapeutics named four new leaders: Roche's Troels Koch as senior VP of chemistry; GlaxoSmithKline's Julia Vassiliadou as VP of clinical operations; Eisai's Ilian Tchakov as VP of clinical development; and Kevin Fettes as VP of chemistry, manufacturing and controls. Release
> Orlando Baeza becomes the first chief marketing officer of Medable after serving in that post at Kajabi and Pollen. Release
> Vedanta Biosciences hired Simona Levi, Ph.D., as chief legal officer and corporate secretary after serving as general counsel at Cell Signaling Technology. Release