News from Silence Therapeutics, InSite Vision, and Zafgen – People on the move
Thomas Christély has taken the helm as CEO at Silence Therapeutics.
The news comes after the RNAi therapeutics company yesterday announced its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2011.
Christély was previously COO for Silence, and has been with the Group for 10 years.
The firm has also hired biotechnology and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Tony Sedgwick, as new chief business officer.
He has been tasked with building a larger team in business development to increase the company’s activity in generating non-dilutive funding from deals.
InSite Vision has created a new scientific advisory board (SAB) to establish research programs for the development of novel ophthalmic medicines.
The members – Richard Lindstrom, Gary Foulks, Michael Lemp, and Kelly Nichols –represent leaders in ophthalmic research, treatment and clinical drug development, and will be led by InSite’s chief medical officer Kamran Hosseini, and board member Brian Levy.
Lindstrom is founder and attending surgeon of the Minnesota Eye Consultants, as well as adjunct professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota’s department of ophthalmology.
Foulks is currently Editor-in-Chief of The Ocular Surface and is on the editorial boards of Cornea and the Eye and Contact Lenses (formerly the CLAO Journal).
Corneal specialist Lemp’s research focus is in dry eye and ocular surface disease where his work stands as the worldwide standard for the design of clinical trials for dry eye. He is currently chief medical officer of Tearlab.
And finally Nichols is a professor at the University of Houston College of Optometry, where she has an NIH grant to study dry eye in postmenopausal women.
Hosseini said: "The interest and direct participation of these world-class medical professionals on our SAB reflects the progress InSite is achieving in the development of ocular medicines.”
Novel obesity therapeutics specialists Zafgen has named Dennis Kim as new chief medical officer.
Previously in senior-level clinical and corporate affairs positions at Orexigen Therapeutics, Kim will now lead the businesses clinical development, including clinical and regulatory strategy, trial design and oversight of the company's virtual clinical team.
“An endocrinologist by training, Dennis brings to Zafgen a unique skill set of clinical, regulatory and business development experience in the fields of obesity, endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism,” said Thomas Hughes, president and chief executive officer of Zafgen.
Adaptimmune has two new board members in Jonathan Knowles and Helen Tayton-Martin.
Once president of group research at Roche Holdings, Knowles now joins the board at Adaptimmune as a non-executive director.
Tayton-Martin, the firm’s current chief operating officer, will become an executive director.
With the new appointments the T cell therapy company hopes to strengthen its leadership to support the opening of three pilot cancer trials and an HIV trial earlier this year.
American Peptide Company has appointed Minoru Sakakibara as president and CEO.
Sakakibara – previously part of the senior management team of Otsuka Chemical Company – replaces Takahiro Ogata, who will now become CEO of ILS Inc., the parent company of American Peptide Company.
Of his replacement, Ogata said: “Mr. Sakakibara has the experience and vision to guide American Peptide Company as they grow and increase their peptide manufacturing capacity.”
