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 Blankenship, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Lonza poaches Roche exec for CEO as Moderna COVID-19 collab speeds ahead
Lonza
Pierre-Alain Ruffieux will join as CEO.
Ruffieux, currently head of global pharma technical operations at fellow Swiss pharma Roche, will officially take the helm Nov. 1, Lonza said. He will replace Albert Baehny, the Lonza chairman who’s been filling the CEO role since Marc Funk left the job last November after just about nine months at the helm. Baehny previously said Funk's replacement should have two decades of biopharma experience, and Ruffieux certainly fits that description. After about 12 years at Novartis, he joined Roche as head of global quality and compliance in 2015. In his current position, he oversees all technical development, manufacturing, quality and related regulatory activities across Roche. A key task ahead of Ruffieux will be executing Lonza's 10-year contract to help Moderna make its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273. Fierce Pharma
Altasciences continues to beef up its exec suite with newly promoted CMO
Altasciences
Gaetano Morelli, Ph.D., has been promoted to CMO.
Morelli has been at Altasciences in various guises for seven years, first as a GI consultant and then signing on as medical adviser back in 2017, climbing up the ladder until hitting the CMO role. In his new role, he “will continue to provide key insight to our teams in North America and to sponsors worldwide as we navigate the complexities of early-phase drug development,” said Chris Perkin, Altasciences' CEO. Before Altasciences, Morelli was the global medical director at MDS Pharma for 10 years and is also an associate professor of medicine at McGill University in Montreal. Fierce Biotech
FiercePharmaPolitics—FDA official leaves Warp Speed to preserve independent regulatory power: report
FDA
Peter Marks has stepped away from Operation Warp Speed.
Marks, who runs the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA, had been part of the group but stepped down after several days of work on the project, sources told Politico. A memo said the White House had found enough other experts for the Warp Speed work, Politico reports, but a source told the publication Marks actually "quit in disgust." Operation Warp Speed aims to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine to Americans by the end of the year, and President Donald Trump recently named former GlaxoSmithKline exec—and former Moderna board member—Moncef Slaoui to lead the group. Fierce Pharma
> Dendreon Pharmaceuticals has named Jason O’Neill as CEO. O'Neill most recently served as CEO at Iridium Therapeutics and has held senior roles at Roche/Genentech, Mallinckrodt, Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer.
> The U.K. government has appointed Clive Dix as deputy chair of the U.K.’s Vaccine Taskforce to help lead efforts to find and manufacture a coronavirus vaccine. Dix currently serves as CEO at C4XD.
> Cambridge, Massachusetts-based X4 Pharmaceuticals has promoted Renato Skerlj, Ph.D., to the position of CSO. Prior to joining X4, Skerlj held leadership roles at Lysosomal Therapeutics. Before that, he was interim head of small molecule discovery at Genzyme and part of the executive team at AnorMED.
> Newly formed Larimar Therapeutics has appointed Nancy Ruiz, M.D. as CMO and Michael Celano as CFO. Ruiz most recently served as VP of clinical development and head of drug safety at Prolong Pharmaceuticals. Release
> Watertown, Massachusetts-based Lyndra Therapeutics has named Örn Almarsson as chief technology officer. Almarsson most recently led the delivery science team at Moderna Therapeutics and previously served as VP of pharma R&D at Alkermes. Release
> San Diego-based Amplyx Pharmaceuticals has fleshed out its leadership team with the appointments of Chris LeMasters as chief operating officer and Carlos Sattler, M.D., as senior VP of clinical development. Prior to Amplyx, LeMasters served as CBO at Mirati Therapeutics, and Sattler held multiple leadership roles at Halozyme, Sandoz and Merck. Release
> Waltham, Massachusetts-based Dyne Therapeutics has tapped Daniel Wilson as VP and head of intellectual property. Wilson joins Dyne from Celgene, where he served as senior corporate counsel. Release
> Waltham, Massachusetts-based Scipher Medicine has named Jerry Conway as senior VP of market access.