If you’re in neuroscience, you’ve probably heard of him.

Few people have dipped a hand in as many neuroscience biotechs and government research units as Steve Paul, and he’s going out (nearly) on top.

The decadeslong CNS drug discovery and development veteran retired from his post as chief scientific officer and president of R&D at Karuna Therapeutics on Jan. 16, just weeks after inking a $14 billion exit to Bristol Myers Squibb.

Paul will remain on the board at Karuna, a biotech on the verge of becoming the first to market a new type of schizophrenia drug after decades of trying to innovate new approaches to treating the condition. The FDA will decide on Karuna’s candidate, dubbed KarXT, by the end of September. He had also been chair, president and CEO of the biotech from 2018 to 2022.

The Washington University School of Medicine professor originally made his mark during 18 years on the government research side as scientific director of the National Institute of Mental Health before transitioning to industry.

He spent 17 years at Eli Lilly, starting in the early 1990s, and eventually headed up Lilly Research Laboratories as president. Paul would go on to co-found other neuroscience biotechs like Sage Therapeutics and Voyager Therapeutics, where he was also an early CEO.

“His experience and creativity in the field is rare,” ARCH Venture Partners co-founder and managing director Bob Nelsen said of Paul in 2018.

Paul’s legacy will continue to be felt at other biotechs like Rapport Therapeutics, a Janssen neuromedicine spinout that he chairs. He’s also chair of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

With a wave of new startups emerging in neuropsychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative diseases, will any entice Paul enough to quickly emerge from retirement (again)?

— Kyle LaHucik

Mondher Mahjoubi

→ GSK is expanding its C-suite with a new position, a spokesperson tells Endpoints News. The pharma giant has selected former Innate Pharma CEO Mondher Mahjoubi as chief patient officer, a role that “will support greater patient and healthcare provider insights, and ensure that these, and patient needs in particular, more strongly inform the development and delivery of our medicines and vaccines,” the spokesperson added.

GSK also made some leadership changes last September to accommodate the split of its research operations into three groups: vaccines and infectious diseases, respiratory and immunology, and oncology. Phil Dormitzer, Kaivan Khavandi and Hesham Abdullah lead the respective teams, while GSK’s former head of research John Lepore left to take the CEO job at Flagship’s ProFound Therapeutics.

Not long after Mahjoubi announced his resignation at Innate Pharma, the FDA lifted the partial clinical hold on an IND for the French biotech’s cancer drug lacutamab.

David Berry

→ Valo Health CEO David Berry will exit on Feb. 2, and the Flagship company has lined up CFO and chief people officer Graeme Bell as his interim replacement. Ex-Aprea Therapeutics chief Christian Schade has been named executive chairman at Valo Health, which formed a partnership in the cardiometabolic space with Novo Nordisk last September. Bell is the former finance chief at Tmunity and Intellia Therapeutics who spent five of his 22 years with Merck as country CFO, US human health. Valo’s proposed merger with a Khosla Ventures SPAC in 2021 was unsuccessful.

Doug Manion

→ Last year at this time, ex-Arena Pharmaceuticals R&D chief Doug Manion was elevated to CEO at Aclaris Therapeutics. But the Pennsylvania biotech recently ran into trouble when its lead anti-inflammatory drug zunsemetinib flopped in Phase II — investors fled, while layoffs affected nearly half of Aclaris’ employees. Zunsemetinib will stay in the picture as a cancer treatment, but Manion isn’t. With a strategic review in the works, co-founder and chairman Neal Walker is back in the saddle as interim chief. Walker ran Aclaris for a decade before handing the reins to Manion, who joined Aclaris in the summer of 2022 as president and COO.

Michael Martin

→ Michael Martin has succeeded Astellas vet Percival Barretto-Ko as president and CEO of protein degradation player Plexium. Martin spent 12 years at Takeda, where he was global head of the Center for External Innovation. He’s also been president of the Japanese pharma’s VC arm, Takeda Ventures. Chaired by Mike Grey, Plexium’s molecular glues piqued the interest of Amgen and AbbVie in two separate deals.

Andrei Floroiu

→ Andrei Floroiu is out after more than three and a half years as CEO of Vaxart. Chairman Michael Finney has stepped in as interim chief for the South San Francisco vaccine maker, which walked away from its Covid-19 work and dismissed 27% of its staff last year. Instead, Vaxart is focusing on its norovirus program that hit all but one of its primary endpoints in a Phase II challenge study. Wouter Latour had a nine-year run as CEO before Floroiu replaced him in 2020.

→ Michael Dudley retired as CEO of TransCode Therapeutics on Jan. 13, passing the baton to CFO Tom Fitzgerald on an interim basis. Additionally, chief technology officer Zdravka Medarova has been promoted to CSO at TransCode, which is developing RNA therapies for cancer. In a Jan. 4 open letter co-signed by Dudley and executive chairman Philippe Calais, TransCode outlined its plans to restructure, trimming its workforce “from 19 employees at the end of 2022 to 11 at the end of 2023.” The company’s goal is to submit an IND application for its lead asset TTX-MC138 sometime in the first quarter.

Sean McLoughlin

→ Longtime GSK vet Sean McLoughlin has taken over for Aditya Kohli as COO of Takeda spinout HilleVax. Kohli has shifted to the role of business chief. To close out more than two decades at GSK, McLoughlin was the global commercial leader for Arexvy, which has sprinted to such a commanding lead in the RSV race with Pfizer that GSK commercial chief Luke Miels recently said it owns more than 70% of the market share. Earlier, McLoughlin held such roles as US marketing lead for Shingrix and new product strategy lead with the vaccines business unit.

→ According to an SEC filing, Danforth Advisors managing director Stephen DiPalma has stepped in as interim CFO of Foghorn Therapeutics. DiPalma also pinch-hit at Spero Therapeutics until Esther Rajavelu became CFO and CBO in November. Allan Reine stepped down on Jan. 16 and had been Foghorn’s finance chief since 2019.

Annalisa D’Andrea

→ Longwood-backed Immunitas Therapeutics has picked up Annalisa D’Andrea as CSO. Since her days at Roche as global head of discovery for immunology and inflammation, D’Andrea handled CSO responsibilities at Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals and was president and CSO of ImmuneID. She’s also a venture partner at Longwood and a board member at Engimmune Therapeutics.

→ Mark Winderlich will replace Katia Schlienger as Hookipa Pharma’s permanent chief development officer on April 1, and until that time, interim medical chief and ex-MorphoSys R&D chief Malte Peters will be a senior clinical advisor. Peters will continue to serve on the board of directors when Winderlich, a MorphoSys vet in his own right, officially takes over. For the past year, Winderlich was in charge of Evotec’s oncology tie-up with Bristol Myers as head of scientific operations, molecular glue discovery & development.

Julie Jordan

→ Neurogene, the CNS biotech that took Neoleukin’s spot on the Nasdaq when the two companies merged, has recruited Julie Jordan as CMO. Jordan was elevated to the same position at Homology Medicines in January 2023, but she was let go the following July — along with 87% of the staff — when Homology turned out the lights on all their clinical development operations. Homology would combine with Q32 Bio in another reverse merger. Jordan is the former senior director of global clinical development at Cerevel, which AbbVie bought for $8.7 billion in December.

Tatiana Novobrantseva

→ I/O biotech NextPoint Therapeutics has brought in Verseau Therapeutics co-founder Tatiana Novobrantseva as CSO. The ex-scientist at Biogen and Alnylam spent the last year and a half with Moderna as CSO, immuno-oncology research. Dana-Farber and Eli Lilly alum Leena Gandhi took the CMO job at NextPoint last February, and Endpoints News scooped you about its $80 million raise a month earlier.

Joanne Quan

→ Livmarli maker Mirum Pharmaceuticals has recruited Joanne Quan as CMO and promoted Peter Radovich to president and COO. Peer Review checked in with Quan in August 2022 when she became CMO at Nuvig Therapeutics, and she was succeeded by Alan Glicklich a few months ago. Quan is also the former medical chief at Eiger BioPharmaceuticals and Modis Therapeutics who led clinical development at Arena Pharmaceuticals from 2012-14. Radovich was named COO at Mirum in 2020 and was EVP of operations for Global Blood Therapeutics. The FDA gave the go-ahead to Livmarli in 2021 for cholestatic pruritus in children with Alagille syndrome.

Christopher Bostrom

→ Paratek Pharmaceuticals has promoted Christopher Bostrom to CFO and Jonathan Light to general counsel, corporate secretary and chief compliance officer. Bostrom joined Paratek from Biogen in March 2016 as director, financial planning & analysis, and had been VP of finance since 2020. Light held the role of senior director, executive counsel at Teva before pivoting to Paratek in 2017, starting out as assistant general counsel and vaulting to deputy general counsel in September 2022. Gurnet Point Capital and Novo Holdings teamed up to buy Paratek for $462 million last summer.

→ Joseph Frattaroli is taking a bow as he heads into retirement from his role as CFO of Inhibikase Therapeutics. Frattaroli has served as finance chief since April 2018 and is now handing the reins over to VP for finance Garth Lees-Rolfe — who was formerly finance VP at F-star. Frattaroli founded Flagship Consulting in 2010 and previously was an independent consultant to Danforth Advisors.

Whitney Jones

→ Whitney Jones has jumped to Vaxcyte as chief people officer after more than three years with the same title at Sangamo Therapeutics. Jones is the former global head of human resources for Novartis Diagnostics, and outside of the biopharma industry, she’s also worked for Gap and Coca-Cola. Vaxcyte pulled off the positive-data-to-public-offering maneuver in impressive fashion last spring with a $500 million raise as it tries to challenge Pfizer’s Prevnar 20 with its pneumococcal vaccine VAX-24.

→ Adial Pharmaceuticals has elected one of its board members, Tony Goodman, as COO. Goodman has served on Adial’s board since 2017 and will remain a member. Earlier in his career, Goodman held a variety of posts at Indivior, culminating in his role as chief business development officer. Goodman is also the founder and managing director of The Keswick Group.

Ana Sousa

→ San Diego’s Aspen Neuroscience has promoted Ana Sousa to chief regulatory officer. In April 2021, Sousa came to Aspen as SVP of regulatory, quality and product strategy after leading the global regulatory affairs team at Principia Biopharma. Aspen is developing a cell therapy for Parkinson’s called ANPD001, while Bayer’s BlueRock is slightly further ahead with bemdaneprocel.

→ Protein degradation specialist Arvinas has tapped Jared Freedberg as general counsel. We last saw Freedberg in January 2021 when he became general counsel at Intercept Pharmaceuticals, the company that couldn’t punch it into the end zone with NASH and was sold to Alfasigma last fall. Arvinas now has enough cash to last “until 2027” after a $350 million private placement in late November.

Mary Beth DeLena

→ Getting back on track after the FDA lifted a clinical hold last October, Boston biotech PepGen has now brought on Mary Beth DeLena as general counsel and secretary. DeLena hails from Alnylam, where she was SVP, deputy general counsel and assistant secretary. Before that, she was with Praecis Pharmaceuticals.

Terry-Ann Burrell

→ Third Rock’s Rapport Therapeutics has elected Beam Therapeutics CFO Terry-Ann Burrell to the board of directors. Rapport has gained steam as an IPO candidate after its $150 million Series B last August, the neuroscience biotech’s second such megaround in a five-month period.

→ VectorY, the Amsterdam-based neuro biotech that nabbed a $138 million Series A in November, has welcomed Khurem Farooq to the board of directors. Farooq and Anthony Adamis launched Aiolos Bio three months ago, then sold the company to GSK for up to $1.4 billion.

→ Former Acceleron CEO Habib Dable and Gilead oncology clinical development exec Bill Grossman have joined the board of directors at Day One Biopharmaceuticals. Dable is a board member at Blueprint Medicines, Aerovate Therapeutics and PepGen, while Grossman had board seats at Pionyr Immunotherapeutics and Tizona Therapeutics.

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