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.
Mylan CEO Bresch set to exit after years of controversy—and one last big deal
Mylan
Heather Bresch announced her planned retirement from the company in 2020.
The 28-year veteran of the company said she's planning to step aside as Mylan is joining forces with Pfizer's Upjohn business, the companies said Monday. Once the deal closes in mid-2020, Bresch said she will retire. Mylan's executive chairman Robert Coury will stay on in the same role, as will President Rajiv Malik, who's been named in a generics price-fixing suit brought by state attorneys general. Bresch is set to collect about $37.6 million with the change in leadership, per a Mylan proxy filing. She's been among the highest-paid CEOs across pharma in years past, although she didn't make the top 20 in 2018. FiercePharma
Adaptimmune R&D chief leaves at dawn of critical trial
Adaptimmune
Rafael Amado will resign from his role as chief medical officer.
The R&D chief is set to leave Adaptimmune in less than two weeks, triggering a search for a new clinical leader. Amado joined Adaptimmune as chief medical officer in 2015 before transitioning to the role of president of R&D last year. The new position expanded Amado's responsibilities, giving him oversight of all research and clinical activities from target identification through regulatory filings. Soon, Adaptimmune will have to do without that leadership. Amado, who worked at Amgen and GlaxoSmithKline earlier in his career, is set to leave Adaptimmune Aug. 12 “to pursue other opportunities.” Adaptimmune is recruiting a CMO to cover the clinical part of Amado’s duties but may have to rely on its existing employees to handle the work in the near term. FierceBiotech
Verastem signs on Stuglik as CEO
Verastem
Brian Stuglik was named CEO.
The Eli Lilly veteran who sat on Verastem’s board of directors was hired a month after Robert Forrester stepped down from the CEO post. Stuglik wore a number of hats at Lilly, ending his tenure as global vice president and chief marketing officer of the Big Pharma’s Oncology Global Marketing unit. During that time, he grew Lilly Oncology from one approved drug to a stable of marketed products and late-stage programs across more than 10 cancer types, Verastem said in a statement Monday. FierceBiotech
> Frontier Medicines is overhauling its leadership team with the three appointments of Kevin Webster, Ph.D., as CSO, Johannes Hermann, Ph.D., as CTO and Jim Winkler, Ph.D., as head of degrader technologies. Webster previously served as VP of oncology research at AstraZeneca. Hermann headed the machine learning and advanced analytics IT department at Janssen before leading the data science unit at Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Technology. Finally, Winkler spent 15 years at GlaxoSmithKline before taking posts in discovery and development at various biotechs before joining Frontier. FierceBiotech
> Andrew Parker, Zealand Pharma's CSO, will step down from his post at the end of the month after taking an offer from another biotech. Zealand said Parker, a British national who had worked with the biotech for three years, is moving on to take up a “top executive leadership position in a non-competing biotechnology company outside Denmark." Rie Schultz Hansen, Zealand’s VP of research, will lead the department on an interim basis. FierceBiotech
> A year after Arvinas pulled off a $120 million IPO, it has hired Bristol-Myers Squibb veteran Ronald Peck, M.D. as its newest CMO. Peck started his career at BMS, working on antipsychotic Abilify before moving to oncology. He ended his tenure as a VP and the global development lead for the checkpoint inhibitor Yervoy. Later, Peck worked at Kolltan Pharma and then as Tesaro's SVP of clinical research. FierceBiotech
> Cambridge-based Thrive Earlier Detection has tapped David Daly as its next CEO and a member of the board of directors. Daly, who will take over the role Aug. 19, will follow interim CEO Steven Kafka, Ph.D., who will assume the role of executive chairman of the board. Daly most recently served as senior VP and general manager of commercial operations for the Americas region for Illumina. Daly previously worked at Foundation Medicine, led the oncology business unit at Life Technologies, was CCO at Clarient and held roles at Roche Diagnostics and Abbott Laboratories. Release
> G1 Therapeutics, a clinical-stage oncology company, has appointed Mark Avagliano as its newest CBO, where he will be responsible for leading the company’s global partnering and corporate development strategy and execution. Avagliano most recently worked as VP of corporate development at Pfizer, where he worked for 15 years. Before that, Avagliano held commercial and operational roles at Aventis. Release
> Cambridge-based Sherlock Biosciences is updating its executive team with the appointments of Don Haut, Ph.D., as CBO, and William Blake, Ph.D., as CTO. Haut previously served as CBO at Histogenics and VP for new business and American sales operations at The Medicines Company. Blake most recently worked at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and was previously on the founding team of GreenLight Biosciences as VP of R&D. Release
> Marcelo Cheresky will join China-based CANbridge Pharmaceuticals as its next senior VP of rare disease commercial operations. Cheresky most recently worked as VP of emerging markets at Bioverativ, a Sanofi company. Before that, he worked as executive director of routes-to-care strategy at Ultragenyx and regional VP of Latin America for Synageva Biopharma. Release
> NeuroPace, a brain-computer interface technologies medtech, has hired Mark Saxton as its newest VP of sales. Saxton previously worked as VP of sales and marketing for Ceterix Orthopaedics as well as VP of product solutions at Integer and VP of sales and customer service at VNUS Medical. Release
> Corbus Pharmaceuticals has named Quinn Dinh as VP of medical affairs. Dinh previously worked as the global medical affairs leader for Alnylam since 2017. Before that, Dinh worked at Shire, Azur Pharma (now Jazz Pharma) and Amicus Therapeutics.