Welcome to this week's Chutes and Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Angus Liu (email) and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Teva kicks out high-level executives in drastic structure shakeup
Teva
CSO Michael Hayden will leave.
A shakeup at Teva was expected when Kåre Schultz, who pushed for a rejig at Lundbeck, came on board as CEO. Schultz did live up to his reputation with a company-wide restructuring, but at a scope perhaps few had foreseen. The company will combine its generics and specialty medicines into one commercial organization with three geographic segments, and their R&D efforts will also be put together. As a result, CSO Michael Hayden, specialty drugs CEO Rob Koremans and generics chief Dipankar Bhattacharjee will have to pack their bags. Hafrun Fridriksdottir, who joined Teva from Allergan in 2016 to serve as generics R&D head, will become EVP of global R&D. Brendan O’Grady will be responsible for North America commercial; Richard Daniell, who’s currently head of generics in Europe, will lead the combined European segment; Gianfranco Nazzi will take charge of growth markets. The changes aren’t especially welcomed by some analysts. FiercePharma
Bayer brings pharma research and development under one roof
Bayer
Joerg Moeller will become head of R&D.
Bayer is changing its R&D organization days after making big bets potentially worth $1 billion in Loxo’s oncology assets. As all research and development activities across therapeutic areas are combined under one unit, Joerg Moeller, who joined Bayer in 1993 and currently serves as head of development, will become the new head of R&D; Andreas Busch, head of drug discovery, will head for the door. Back in February, the company formed a unified oncology strategic business unit within its pharma division, and entrusted Robert LaCaze to lead it. The announcement also came as the German company replaced its consumer health chief. FierceBiotech
Moeller and Amgen vet Dittrich lands at Shire
Shire
Andreas Busch will serve as EVP, head of R&D and CSO.
Bayer didn't specify where Busch would go after his departure, but it became clear soon, as Shire announced that he has taken its CSO offer. Jeff Poulton’s decision to leave Shire as CFO to serve as Boston-based agricultural startup Indigo’s CFO spooked investors in August because it came soon after the departure of R&D chief Phil Vickers. Now, the company has filled both positions, having recruited Thomas Dittrich to take the CFO job early next year. Dittrich is now CFO at industrial engineering and manufacturing firm Sulzer; prior to that, he served on finance posts for eight years with Amgen; he has also held various finance and GM roles with Dell for eight years. Howard Mayer, M.D., who joined Shire in 2012 from the CMO role at EMD Serono and has recently been acting on an interim basis as Shire's R&D head, will transition to CMO in January 2018. FierceBiotech | Release
Finance expert Capello joins Biogen as CFO
Biogen
Jeffrey Capello was appointed CFO.
Finance veteran Jeffrey Capello will soon become Biogen’s CFO, relieving interim finance principal Greg Covino from the job. The vacancy was left by long-time Biogen CFO Paul Clancy, who jumped ship to Alexion in June. Capello brings 26 years of experience in finance, most recently serving as CFO of Beacon Health Options. With an MBA in accounting from Harvard Business School, he also was CFO for Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Boston Scientific and Perkin Elmer. Release
> Fierce 15 winner Vir Biotechnology named infectious disease and immunology specialist Herbert W. “Skip” Virgin, M.D., Ph.D., as CSO. FierceBiotech
> AstraZeneca is transferring its R&D capabilities in China to a new joint venture called Dizal and has named its Innovation Center China chief Xiaolin Zhang as the company's first CEO. FierceBiotech
> Ann Lee, Ph.D., who was most recently Roche/Genentech's global head of pharma technical development, jumped ship to Juno Therapeutics as EVP of technical operations. Patrick Yang, who was also with Roche/Genentech before joining Juno in 2013, was named EVP and senior adviser to the CEO. Release
> Ironwood recruited McKinsey vet William Huyett as COO and promoted Gina Consylman to SVP and CFO. Release
> Novartis-backed Israeli biotech Gamida Cell named Julian Adams, Ph.D.—its current chair and Clal Biotech's CSO—as new CEO to replace long-serving CEO Yael Margolin, Ph.D., who is staying on as president. FierceBiotech
> Intrexon made three C-level appointments: Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Thomas Bostick, Ph.D., replaced Andrew Last, Ph.D., as COO; Nir Nimrodi was promoted to CBO; Helen Sabzevari, Ph.D., who just joined the firm from an immuno-oncology stint at EMD Serono, was named president of Intrexon's wholly owned subsidiary, Precigen. Release
> Trying to boost its immuno-oncology pipeline, Nektar Therapeutics made several promotions: Stephen Doberstein, Ph.D., to SVP of R&D and chief R&D officer; Mary Tagliaferri, M.D., to SVP of clinical development and CMO; and Jonathan Zalevsky, Ph.D., to SVP of research and CSO. Release
> Horizon Pharma named Shao-Lee Lin, M.D., Ph.D., EVP of R&D and CSO; a Johns Hopkins University alum, she previously held leadership roles at AbbVie, Gilead and Amgen. Release
> Cleave Biosciences' CEO Laura Shawver, Ph.D., was appointed to helm synthetic biology expert Synthorx. Release
> Novo Nordisk executive Joseph Kelly joined Radius Health as SVP of sales and marketing, succeeding David Snow, who served as the CCO since 2015 and is leaving; Amanda Mott was at the same time promoted to SVP of market access. Release
> As Envigo is going public through a merger with Avista, it brought on Paul Surdez as VP in charge of corporate affairs and investor relations. Release
> Nhi Ong, who previously served with Valeant and ThromboGenics, joined Aerie as director of analytics, responsible for the information and analytics functions in support of Aerie’s commercial organization. Release
> Mitsubishi Tanabe's U.S. subsidiary hired Kevin O'Brien as VP of market access. Release
> Executive search firm for the life science industry Fairway Consulting Group recently added former UCB Pharma HR executive Tripp Smallwood as senior director. Release