For Kieran English, the newest member of GV’s life sciences unit, life has finally come full circle.

The investment arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet, Inc. formally announced English’s appointment to GV this morning, after she officially started a few weeks ago on Jan. 28 — the next chapter of a two-plus decade-long career largely spent in management consulting and recruiting. With GV, she’ll try to apply her recruitment and team-building background, focusing on building relationships.

She has the experience. Before consulting, English originally worked in the biotech/pharma space after college.

English has a liberal arts background from Manhattan College. But while studying for her MBA at Fordham School of Business in the mid-to-late 1990s, she went to a presentation from George Rathmann, Amgen’s founding CEO.

In her words, she got bit by the biotech bug.

“It was a real spark in terms of what interested me,” English told Endpoints News. “And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a really interesting industry.’” While she admits she didn’t know much about biotech before Rathmann’s presentation, she decided to go ahead and go for the industry.

She got a job straight out of college at Chiron, where she worked in M&A before it got bought out in 2005 by Novartis.

After leaving Novartis in 2007, she joined Geron Corporation, a biotech focused on building cancer drugs based on telomere biology, then went to consulting firms Russell Reynolds Associates and Spencer Stuart.

Krishna Yeshwant

While there, English worked with a bunch of the leaders of GV’s life sciences unit, such as managing partner Krishna Yeshwant and general partner David Schenkein. They had worked together on getting a management team in place for Foundation Medicine in its early stages.

English left her job to join GV for a couple of reasons, she said. First, she wanted to work alongside executive partner Dan Lynch, who English has known for about 15 years and whom she had worked with in a variety of ways before he moved over to GV.

“[I was] really motivated by this interest in being much more a strategic part of a team and building relationships for the long term, as opposed to the environment in (recruiting) where you’re solving for a moment in time,” English said.

In consulting, she said, you come into a company to find and install a management team or a C-suite executive in that moment. And it can be really difficult to maintain those business relationships for the long term.

Part of the opportunity at GV was, as English put it, to “redefine how we think of people” in terms of building relationships  — both near-term and in the long run.

In her time at Chiron, Geron and management recruiting, English learned two lessons along the way: tenacity matters and do what you love.

In the first weeks of her job, English is currently in the “listening phase” — meeting with other people within GV and spending time with portfolio companies.

Part of her strategy is looking ahead at companies over the long term — Yeshwant told Endpoints that GV is taking a 5- to 10-year outlook at how the life science space is evolving. From his view, there is a major bottleneck in building out companies: people.

“Our anticipation or plan here is to try and take a really different approach to how we navigate the networks in biotech,” Yeshwant told Endpoints.

From Yeshwant’s perspective, there comes a point where relationships with certain people need to be developed over a period of years before an opportunity — or an opening in a portfolio company — opens up.

He added that “oftentimes, you needed to lay the roots and the relationships with those people years in advance in authentic ways that are really about them — and not about these portfolio companies — to have the right relationship with the people.”

As to whether that long-term, “slow and steady” strategy will win the race? Guess we’ll find out in due time.

— Paul Schloesser

Rachelle Jacques

→ Rachelle Jacques shepherded Enzyvant toward its breakthrough moment — an approval for the pediatric congenital athymia drug Rethymic in October 2021 — but by the end of this month she’ll be venturing off to her next challenge as president and CEO of Akari Therapeutics. Jacques’ predecessor at the nomacopan developer, Clive Richardson, took over as chief executive in 2018 when David Horn Solomon resigned for splurging on himself using company credit cards. Jacques had been in charge at Enzyvant since 2019 after a relatively short stay as Alexion’s SVP and global complement franchise head, and she’ll be tasked with pushing nomacopan, C5 complement inhibitor, past the goal line in bullous pemphigoid (BP) and thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA).

Tom Wiggans

→ Tom Wiggans is back in the driver’s seat of another biotech again, turning up as CEO and chairman of the board at Pardes Biosciences, a company trying not to get lapped on the Covid-19 pill track. Wiggans replaces Uri Lopatin, who shifts into the role of chief scientific & strategic advisor while former chairman Mark Auerbach keeps his seat on the board. Wiggans — a board member at Annexon, Cymabay and Forma Therapeutics — co-founded Dermira in 2010 and was CEO and chairman when Eli Lilly purchased the skin disease biotech and lebrikizumab for $1.1 billion in early 2020. In late December, Pardes rolled into Nasdaq on one of Jim Tananbaum’s SPACs at Foresite, FS Development Corp. II.

Jatin Shah

→ Peer Review told you last week that Jatin Shah left Karyopharm, so now let’s fill you in on his new home: He’s taken on the roles of CMO and global head of development at Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Oncology, a subsidiary of the Japanese pharma. Shah spent nine years at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center before his arrival at Karyopharm as VP of clinical strategy in May 2017, and he’s still listed as a consultant at the Newton, MA cancer biotech, which received pushback from the FDA a couple days ago on its sNDA for selinexor to treat endometrial cancer.

Robert Johnson

→ GSK-backed “synthetic viability” upstart Adrestia Therapeutics has named Affinia co-founder Robert Johnson as CEO, leaving co-founder and interim CEO Steve Jackson to concentrate on his CSO duties. Johnson was COO, CBO and later head of business development & licensing at the gene therapy biotech that was one of the Endpoints 11 for 2021 and is aiming for a $100 million IPO — albeit in an unfavorable environment. Adrestia racked up a $60 million Series A in December 2020 co-led by GSK and Ahren Innovation Capital, where Jackson is a founding partner.

Christian Hogg

→ Christian Hogg has spent a good portion of his career in China — 22 years with Hutchmed, 15 of those as its CEO, and 27 years overall — and he feels now is the time for a change. “I have taken the decision to return home to Europe to focus on, and be close to, my important family responsibilities,” Hogg said in a statement, passing the CEO torch to Weiguo Su on Friday. Su, the chief scientist at Hutchmed for the last decade, has been with the company since 2005 after 15 years with Pfizer on the US R&D team. In August 2021, Hutchmed struck a deal with Epizyme to grab Greater China rights to Tazverik — then-Epizyme chief Robert Bazemore’s parting shot before stepping down. Meanwhile, Hutchmed is still waiting for the FDA’s blessing on surufatinib while it sports an approval in China.

→ Gemini Therapeutics’ CEO Jason Meyenburg is jumping ship just five months after spelling out his survival plan for the little biotech. With his exit, the company will also begin laying off 80% of its remaining staff. Executive chair Georges Gemayel will be taking over the helm while the biotech reviews alternatives. Meyenburg joined Gemini in September of 2019 and previously served as CCO of Orchard Therapeutics, Sucampo Pharmaceuticals and Vtesse. Earlier in his career, Meyenburg had a variety of roles at Alexion.

Eric Risser

→ MacroGenics saw its breast cancer drug Margenza get approved in December 2020, partnered with Zai Lab in June 2021 and put a $586 million cancer alliance in motion with Synaffix several weeks ago. It’s against this backdrop that MacroGenics has promoted longtime exec Eric Risser to COO. In 2009, Risser made his way to the Rockville, MD-based biotech after six years at J&J, and in September 2016 he earned a promotion to SVP, business development and portfolio management and CBO.

→ Under the new direction of CEO Nadim Ahmed, Cullinan Oncology has recruited Jeffrey Jones as CMO and has given Anne-Marie Martin a spot on the board of directors. Jones reunites with Ahmed after their days at Bristol Myers Squibb, where Jones was VP, global drug development, lymphoma and myeloid diseases and Ahmed was president of hematology. Martin is the global head of GlaxoSmithKline’s experimental medicine unit, her second time around at the Big Pharma after serving in multiple capacities from 2005-13.

Ronald Martell

→ Jasper Therapeutics — the Stanford spinout that tried its hand at a SPAC reverse merger with Amplitude Healthcare Acquisition Corp in May 2021 — will have a new sheriff town as Ronald Martell becomes CEO on March 15, replacing executive chairman Bill Lis. Martell has only been chief executive at Philip Low-founded MorphImmune since last April after his time as president and CEO of Nuvelution Pharma, and he also co-founded Indapta Therapeutics (where he’s also been chairman) and Orca Bio. The stem cell-focused Jasper debuted in December 2019 with a $35 million financing round led by Abingworth and Qiming.

Aileen Pangan

→ As Merck says goodbye to chief patient officer Julie Gerberding on May 16, the pharma giant has installed Aileen Pangan this week as VP, therapeutic area head, immunology, global clinical development. Pangan pivots to Merck after more than a decade at AbbVie where, in her most recent role, she was executive medical director, immunology clinical development. Gerberding was named CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) and was added to its board of directors on Tuesday.

Robert Williamson

→ Another CEO job isn’t in Robert Williamson’s immediate future — instead, he’s taken on the role of chief business and financial officer at Phoenix-based OncoMyx, which focuses on the myxoma virus to target a variety of cancers. Williamson only lasted eight months as CEO of BioTheryX, the protein degradation outfit now helmed by Philippe Drouet, and heads to the desert after Lumira Ventures and B Capital Group co-led OncoMyx’s $50 million Series B round in December. He’s also been chief executive at PharmAkea and ATXCo.

Meghan Rivera

→ Meghan Rivera has been named US managing director of Merck women’s health spinout Organon, which took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal last month to encourage women to take this coming Monday off to put their health first. Rivera is a Boehringer Ingelheim and AMAG Pharmaceuticals vet who comes to Organon after her time as chief marketing officer and head of commercial at Akili Interactive, the company behind the first video game approved by the FDA that’s run into some dire financial straits.

Xun Liu

→ Helmed by co-founder Ed Zhang, China’s Overland Pharmaceuticals has appointed Xun Liu as chief technology officer. Liu, an Amgen and Vertex drug development vet who keeps his senior advisory role at Hillhouse Investment, has further Big Pharma experience as a commercial production specialist for hemophilia A drug Kogenate at Bayer. Before leaping to Overland, Liu was president of Hengrui Medicine’s biomedicine development and business division.

→ There’s a CMO transition in progress at cancer biotech Syndax Pharmaceuticals after Michael Metzger succeeded Briggs Morrison as CEO last month. Kate Madigan, who takes over from Michael Meyers, had led clinical development at Syros Pharmaceuticals since June 2019. Earlier, she was senior medical director in clinical research for John Maraganore at Alnylam, and she finished her time at Biogen from 2014-16 with a brief turn as a medical director in the Rare Disease Innovation Unit.

Steve Staben

→ Aetna Wun Trombley’s protein degradation specialists at Eli Lilly partner Lycia Therapeutics have tapped Steve Staben as CSO. Staben began at Genentech as a research scientist in 2007 and steadily made his ascent to senior director and senior principal scientist in oncology and immunology drug discovery before Lycia came calling. Founded by Stanford’s Carolyn Bertozzi, Lycia loaded up on cash in September 2021 not long after the Lilly alliance with a $70 million Series B raise.

→ Eliot Forster-led F-star Therapeutics vaulted onto Nasdaq by merging with Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals in the summer of 2020, and this week the US-UK cancer player has recruited James Sandy for the C-suite. After holding several posts at Pfizer from 2005-09, Sandy carved out a niche as a chief development officer (Creabilis Pharmaceuticals, Immunocore, Ellipses Pharma) that continues here at F-star, which is working on a suite of bispecific antibodies with such targets as LAG-3/PD-L1, OX40 and CD137.

Birgitte Stephensen

→ With FDA approval of its Seagen-partnered ADC for cervical cancer — marketed as Tivdak — now achieved, Genmab is doling out promotions to Birgitte Stephensen (chief legal officer) and Chris Cozic (chief people officer). Stephensen is a 20-year veteran at Genmab who was previously the Danish biotech’s SVP, intellectual property rights and legal, while Cozic came along in 2017 as SVP, global human resources after a string of HR positions over a 12-year period at Ipsen and Eisai.

James Hassard

→ James Hassard has signed on to be chief commercial officer at Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, which launched Radionetics Oncology last fall to cash in on the radiopharma craze. Hassard is a 17-year Amgen vet who later became SVP of marketing and market access at Coherus BioSciences. And from January 2020 to September 2021, he was CCO for Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, which inked an RNA deal following his departure with GSK in a roll-of-the-dice move for the drug giant.

Seshu Tyagarajan

→ Paul Peter Tak’s folks at Candel Therapeutics just brought CSO Francesca Barone into the fold a few weeks ago, and they’re wasting no time fleshing out their leadership again with Seshu Tyagarajan as chief technical and development officer. Tyagarajan chooses a path away from Big Pharma to the oncolytic viral immunotherapy player — she’s worked for Novartis since 2014, and at the time of her departure she was the Swiss pharma’s executive director and global head, late stage CMC strategy for cell and gene therapies. Her résumé also features stops at Merck, Roche, Biogen and ImClone Systems.

Fez Ujjainwalla

→ Co-founded by CEO Jacob Berlin with his brother Eli as chief operating and financial officer, Terray Therapeutics emerged from stealth last month and is stocking up on staff with Fez Ujjainwalla as head of business and Adam Hughes as head of chemistry. Ujjainwalla finishes up a long career at Merck, where most recently he was director of business development and licensing, and Hughes was executive director of medicinal chemistry at Theravance Biopharma, where he spent the last 21 years. Other folks that have joined the Berlin brothers at Terray include Vanessa Taylor (head of biology and preclinical development), Narbe Mardirossian (head of computational and data science) and Craig Schulz (head of automation).

→ Reviving old psychiatry drugs that were gathering dust at Roche and forging ahead with a $59 million Series A in December 2020, Sofinnova-backed Noema Pharma has pegged Michael Gutch as CFO. Before he was CFO and CBO at AstraZeneca spinoff Entasis Therapeutics (which just gained a prospective buyer in Innoviva), he was with the mother ship as executive director of corporate development and head of equities for the pharma giant from 2014-17.

JS Cleiftie

→ Raising the curtain this week with $56 million of funding in tow and Bob Langer as one of the co-founders, NextRNA has brought in JS Cleiftie as CBO. Cleifte, the ex-VP, global business development & licensing with Sanofi, was recently the business chief at Erytech Pharma. Takeda and Pfizer alum Dominique Verhelle is juggling CSO and interim CEO roles at NextRNA, which originated from Dana-Farber and zeroes in on long non-coding RNAs.

→ Connect Four: Picking up where it left off in 2021, Connect Biopharma continues its hiring spree with Chin Lee as CMO. Last year, CFO Steven Chan, chief compliance officer Jiang Bin and CBO Selwyn Ho all joined Connect, whose stock hasn’t yet recovered after it didn’t provide any hard data in November for its eczema drug CBP-201. An Eli Lilly and Abbott alum, Lee nearly made it a year as Theravance Biopharma’s head of clinical science and CMO, and during his three years at Genentech, he was lead group medical director in research and early development (gRED).

Michael Jensen

→ Teaming up with Roche on an inflammatory bowel disease target, Synlogic has enlisted Michael Jensen as CFO. A Novartis and Novo Nordisk financial vet, Jensen was previously the CFO of Intrinsic Therapeutics before making his next move here at the synbio outfit.

→ Now led by one-time Allogene clinical development exec Cyril Konto, New York-based Glenmark spinout Ichnos Sciences has handed Eugene Zhukovsky the CSO reins. Zhukovsky, the ex-chief scientist at Affimed from 2011-14 and the former chief technology officer at GO Therapeutics, had briefly been CTO for Biomunex Pharmaceuticals after six years as CSO at the French company.

→ Cour Pharmaceuticals is adding former Exicure CEO Brian Bock as its new CFO. Prior to his role in the CEO seat at Exicure, Bock was CFO of the company. Earlier in his career, Bock had stints at Lincoln International, JMP Securities and RBC Capital Markets.

Byron Robinson

→ Janux Therapeutics, the company that signed a whopping $1 billion deal with Merck in December 2020, has brought on Byron Robinson as chief strategy officer. Robinson joins with stints at Merck KGaA (SVP of clinical development strategy and innovation); Bayer (VP, senior global program head, oncology); and Amgen under his belt.

→ Entos Pharmaceuticals is bringing on two new execs to its leadership team with the appointments of Steve Chen as CMO and Jason Ding as CBO. Chen previously held stints at Cellics Therapeutics (CMO), La Jolla Pharmaceutical, Takeda, Eli Lilly and Amylin Pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, Ding was partner and senior managing director in Deloitte‘s investment banking practice.

Sarah Romano

→ Sold by Gary Glick to AzurRx BioPharma for $229 million in September 2021 and taking its name in the process, First Wave BioPharma has welcomed Sarah Romano as CFO. Romano started at Kiora Pharmaceuticals, once named EyeGate Pharmaceuticals, as corporate controller in 2016 and would rise to CFO in January 2018.

→ UK-based PhoreMost has locked in Neil Torbett as the company’s CEO. Prior to his new role, Torbett was CBO and subsequently COO of the company. Prior to joining Phoremost in 2017, Torbett was co-founder and COO of Activiomics and served at Piramed Pharma.

Alethia Young

→ Gene editing player Graphite Bio — which reeled in a $238 million IPO in 2021 — will bring in Alethia Young as CFO effective April 1. Young comes aboard after careers at Cantor Fitzgerald, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.

→ Retinal disease-focused Opthea has ushered in Joel Naor as CMO. Naor joins the Aussie-based company from Kodiak Sciences, where he served as VP of clinical science and development operations. Prior to that, Naor was CMO of Macusight and also had careers at Allergan, QLT and Stem Cells Inc.

Frédérique Brune

→ Lyon, France-based Mablink Bioscience, developing a pipeline of ADCs, has named Frédérique Brune as chief development officer. Brune formerly served as VP for development CMC and supply chain at Innate Pharma and prior to that had a decade-long stint at LFB.

→ Plugging away on its Duchenne cell therapy candidate CAP-1002, San Diego’s Capricor Therapeutics has locked in Daniel Paulson as VP of clinical development. So ends a 14-year association with Bayer for Paulson, who was the German multinational’s VP of development and the group head for established products and corporate social responsibility.

Bella Oguno

→ California’s Ashvattha Therapeutics has made a pair of moves with Bella Oguno (VP, clinical operations) and Steve Carlos (VP, manufacturing). Oguno comes to the hydroxyl dendrimer therapeutics (HDT) specialist after more than five years in clinical operations at Global Blood Therapeutics that concluded as an executive director. Carlos has accrued a wealth of manufacturing experience from Portola, Novartis and as senior director of manufacturing/CMC at Maverick, which Takeda purchased not quite a year ago.

→ With its acute myeloid leukemia drug uproleselan in Phase III, GlycoMimetics has swung the door open for Deepak Tiwari, naming him VP, technical operations. Tiwari has worked with AML drugs before as VP and head of CMC operations at Rafael Pharmaceuticals, which suffered an ignominious fate with devimistat in pancreatic cancer back in October.

Brian Hagerty

→ Cowen has brought in Brian Hagerty to be managing director for biotechnology on the Equity Capital Markets team. Hagerty wraps up a brief tenure as head of healthcare capital markets advisory at Matthews South, and for three years before that, he was Evercore’s head of healthcare capital markets.

→ Come sail away: Michael DeRidder has a new voyage ahead at CAR-NK player Catamaran Bio as SVP, corporate strategy and new product planning. DeRidder spent the last decade in a variety of roles at GSK, the last three as VP, medicine commercialization leader for cell and gene therapies. Catamaran has two CAR-NK therapies in the pipeline, one for HER2 positive solid tumors and the other for CD70 positive tumors.

Anne Pariser

→ Flagship Pioneering’s transfer RNA (tRNA) upstart Alltrna has named Anne Pariser VP, medical and regulatory affairs. Since 2018, Pariser had been director of the Office of Rare Diseases Research at NCATS within the NIH. Alltrna introduced itself several months ago, with Flagship shelling out $50 million for the company upon its launch.

→ The biomolecular condensate atmosphere is heating up with Dewpoint Therapeutics’ recent $150 million Series C led by SoftBank, and Ameet Nathwani’s crew has now selected Aravind Subramanian as head of digital & technology platforms. Subramanian has held several posts in the last 17 years at the Broad institute, notably director, computational R&D.

→ Austin, TX-based Molecular Templates, trying to salve the wound of dropping its engineered toxin body (ETB) candidate MT-3724 with a fast track designation for MT-6402, has promoted Megan Filoon to general counsel. Filoon hit the scene at Molecular Templates as corporate counsel in May 2018 and had been VP, legal for the last year. Additionally, Novartis Oncology alum and ex-Ichnos Sciences chief development officer Gabriela Gruia has been named to the board of directors.

Leena Gandhi

→ With its IL-2 leading the pipeline, Versant’s Bright Peak Therapeutics has bolstered its board of directors with Leena Gandhi. In 2020, Gandhi returned to Dana-Farber after her first tour of duty from 2004-16, now serving as director of the Center for Cancer Therapeutic Innovation. In between, she was VP of immuno-oncology development with Eli Lilly.

→ Synthetic lethality player Cyteir Therapeutics out of Lexington, MA has elected Stephen Sands to the board of directors. Once a partner in McKinsey’s healthcare practice, Sands is Lazard’s vice chairman of investment banking and chairman of the Global Healthcare Group.

Anne Hyland

→ Part of Neil Woodford’s old portfolio, oncology and rare disease biotech Mereo BioPharma has reserved a seat for Anne Hyland on the board of directors. Hyland, the ex-CFO and company secretary at Kymab, is also on the boards at Clinigen Group and Elementis.

→ Caraway Therapeutics, which rebranded from Rheostat Therapeutics in 2019 and lined up a Parkinson’s alliance with AbbVie last summer, has planted another seed at its scientific advisory board by appointing David Clapham. His lab is located at the Janelia Research Campus, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s research center in Loudoun County, VA.

Carlo Incerti

→ Under a clinical hold with its DMD program DYNE-251, Dyne Therapeutics has given Carlo Incerti a spot on the board of directors. Moving on from 27 years at Sanofi Genzyme in late 2018, Incerti has been an operating partner at Forbion ever since and is chairman of Inversago Pharma, EryDel, Azafaros and VectorY Therapeutics.

→ Ceapro is pulling out a seat on its board for Ronnie Miller. Miller has a 22-year stint as CEO of Roche Canada under his belt. Prior to his role as CEO and president, Miller held a variety of roles at Roche in the UK, Switzerland and Japan.

→ Philly-based Vallon Pharmaceuticals, focused on the development of its abuse-deterrent prescription drugs for CNS disorders, has bagged Meenu Karson as a member of its board. Karson is no stranger to the board seat as she currently sits on the boards of BIO, Vasomune Therapeutics and Fore Biotherapeutics. Karson, the ex-president and CEO of Proteostasis Therapeutics, was formerly president and CEO of Allozyne. Karson’s earlier stints include roles at Novartis and Bioxell.

→ Equillium, which recently picked up a tri-specific in its buyout of Bioniz Therapeutics, has named Barbara Troupin a member of its board of directors — chiefly as a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee of the board. Troupin most recently served as SVP of Myokardia and was formerly the CMO of ERX Pharmaceuticals, Aquinox and Apricus Biosciences.

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