This month’s announcements include hiring, expansion, and acquisition news from companies like DFE Pharma, ClinOne, Novartis, LEGO, Benchling, and more.
This month’s announcements include hiring, expansion, and acquisition news from companies like DFE Pharma, ClinOne, Novartis, LEGO, Benchling, and more.
Enterprise Therapeutics, a pharma company focused on respiratory disease therapies, has named Niyati Prasad chief medical officer. Prasad will be based in the UK and offer support in advancement of the company’s various clinical programs.
John Ford, CEO of Enterprise Therapeutics, said, “Niyati’s long-standing expertise in respiratory drug development and impressive track record in directing clinical programs will be an invaluable asset to Enterprise. We are confident that Dr. Prasad will play a key role in progressing our novel respiratory therapies through the clinic.”
Healthcare company Syncona has announced it has completed the sale Gyroscope Therapeutics Holdings to pharmaceutical company Novartis for total consideration of up to $1.5b USD. Novartis reportedly paid $800m USD up front, with up to $700m USD to be paid after the achievement of certain milestones.
Gyroscope is focused on discovery and development of treatments for eye-related conditions, including age-related macular degeneration. Its lead investigational gene therapy, GT005, is currently being evaluated in Phase II clinical trials for the treatment of geographic atrophy (GA) secondary to AMD.
Excipients specialist DFE Pharma has named Martti Hedman CEO. He replaces former CEO Bas van Driel, who stepped down in February.
On behalf of the company’s governance board, Herman Ermens of Royal FrieslandCampina said, “Martti will bring a wealth of international experience in the pharma industry as well as a broad range of both industry and customer relationships. We are confident that Martti is very well-placed to take the business to the next level as a global excipient company.”
R&D cloud software provider Benchling acquired Overwatch Research, a startup offering software intended to accelerate in vivo research. The move is intended to create a comprehensive, cloud-native in vivo solution for customers.
“Our software tackles core challenges contributing to the preclinical reproducibility crisis. This helps biopharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations (CROs) reduce errors, increase confidence for first-in-human studies, and ultimately get drugs to patients faster," said Chris Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Overwatch. “By incorporating our in vivo study capabilities into Benchling’s industry-leading R&D Cloud, we’ll be able to reach more scientists and help them turn initial research findings into life-saving products.”
Clinical trial technology company ClinOne has appointed Andrea Valente as its new CEO. She most recently served as chief operating officer at Medable; other past organizations include Oracle and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
Valente said, “To all our customers, in a time of change and uncertainty, I am fully committed to building upon an already strong foundation to ensure ClinOne is the technology partner you trust and value most. We will deliver on our promises to improve the quality, speed, and cost of clinical trial operations while making participation easier and reducing risk for patients, caregivers, and sites.”
Cancer-focused pharma company Cullinan Oncology has named Jeffrey Jones chief medical officer. Additionally, Anne-Marie Martin has been appointed to the company’s board of directors.
“The appointments of Dr. Jeff Jones as chief medical officer and of Dr. Annie Martin to our board of directors expands our expertise within the oncology space and brings diverse perspectives to our leadership team,” said CEO Nadim Ahmed. “With the continued advancement of our pipeline, we are excited to welcome two industry experts who will help us to optimize our upcoming opportunities in late-stage drug development across multiple modalities and indications.”
Biopharmaceutical company PhoreMost has promoted Neil Torbett from COO to CEO; founder and former CEO Chris Torrance will become chair of the company’s board. Before joining PhoreMost in 2017, Torbett co-founded proteomics company Activiomics and worked at Piramed Pharma.
Torrance said, “Neil’s invaluable expertise and guidance as COO has been key to PhoreMost’s great progress over the last few years. He is a huge asset to the company and as CEO, I know that he will continue to shape PhoreMost as a fully integrated target identification and drug discovery company.”
Integrated research services provider Domainex has opened a 7,000+-square-foot facility in Cambridge, UK. The new facility has fully equipped, operational laboratories, and the company is looking to boost staff across disciplines through recruitment efforts.
Tom Mander, CEO of Domainex, said, “On the back of the strong uptake of our services by life science organizations globally over the last two years, the investment into our new facility has allowed us to create a fully dedicated suite of labs to conduct our biology services. We have enjoyed robust growth in this area, especially in our structure-based offerings.”
Clinical study services company mdgroup has appointed Steph Katz as director of its subsidiary Seacole Health. Katz began her career as an oncology nurse in intensive care units, moved on to training clinical research staff, and rose to management.
Tarquin Scadding-Hunt, CEO of mdgroup, said, “Steph’s experience working on the site and sponsor side of clinical research, combined with 16 years as a registered nurse, eight years as a clinical research trainer and her business sense, gives her the ability to move Seacole Health forward as a business that uniquely meets the changing needs of the post-COVID healthcare workforce.”
The LEGO Foundation has announced it plans to donate 600 LEGO models of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners to medical centers around the world, to help children feel less frightened by the process. Started by LEGO chemical technician Erik Ullerlund Staehr and Denmark’s Odense University Hospital, the project is being expanded, along with training material for staff.
Staehr said, “I’ve seen first-hand how children have responded to these models; making them feel more relaxed and turning an often highly stressful experience into a positive, playful one. From making a few LEGO MRI models with other LEGO employees in our free time, it’s amazing to see the project now being rolled out more broadly.”
