Silverback Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Laura Shawver (photo) as president, CEO and member of the board of directors. She brings more than 25 years as a scientist, biotech leader and patient advocate to the role. Shawver was most recently CEO and director of Synthorx from 2017 until its acquisition by Sanofi in January for $2.5 billion. Previously, she was CEO and director of Cleave Biosciences, entrepreneur-in-residence for 5AM Ventures, CEO and director of Phenomix, and president of Sugen. She is a director of Relay Therapeutics, as well as board chair of Cleave Therapeutics.

“With her range of strategic expertise, demonstrated success raising capital, scientific acumen, and broad drug development experience, Laura is the perfect fit for Silverback,” said Peter Thompson, OrbiMed partner, cofounder and chairman of Silverback Therapeutics. “I, along with Silverback’s entire board, look forward to working with Laura and our exceptional leadership team to advance Silverback’s pipeline and deliver on the promise to dramatically improve the lives of patients.”

Patrick Bergstedt has joined Moderna Therapeutics as senior vice president, commercial vaccines. He has held various leadership positions with the infectious diseases and global human health groups at Merck & Co. since 2001, most recently serving as head of global marketing & commercial operations: vaccines. Moderna also announced the appointments of Jacqueline Miller as senior vice president, infectious disease development and Charbel Haber as senior vice president, regulatory affairs. Miller joins the company from GlaxoSmithKline, where she was most recently vice president and head, clinical R&D and epidemiology, and Haber was previously head, global regulatory affairs–immunology and neurology at EMD Serono.

Cellectis has appointed Carrie Brownstein as chief medical officer. Brownstein most recently served as vice president, global clinical R&D, therapeutic area head for myeloid diseases at Celgene.

Ohana Biosciences has appointed Ramiro Castro-Santamaria as chief medical officer. Castro-Santamaria most recently served as vice president of clinical sciences and head of rheumatology at GlaxoSmithKline. Before that he was at Boehringer Ingelheim and Pharmacia (later Pfizer).

Sue Desmond-Hellmann has joined GV, the venture group formerly known as Google Ventures, as a senior adviser. She spent 14 years at Genentech, leaving as president of product development in 2009. She then served as chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco until becoming CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2014 until 2020. Most recently, Desmond-Hellman joined the board of directors of Pfizer in April.

Cellia Habita has joined Immodulon Therapeutics as chief medical officer. She was most recently president and CEO of Arianne Clinical Research. Previous roles include director of product development at Immusol and senior vice president of clinical and medical affairs at Adventrx.

Helen Horton has been appointed chief research officer of Hampton, UK–based Touchlight. She has over 20 years of experience in immunogenetics, immune modulation and infectious diseases. She joins Touchlight from Johnson & Johnson, where she served as a senior scientific director.

Xilio Therapeutics has named Martin H. Huber as chief medical officer. He most recently served as senior vice president and chief medical officer at Tesaro before its acquisition by GlaxoSmithKline.

Former founding CSO of Nimbus Therapeutics Rosana Kapeller has joined new startup Rome Therapeutics as CEO. Kapeller was most recently entrepreneur-in-residence at venture capital firm GV, which, along with Arch Ventures and Partners Innovation Fund, are behind Rome’s $50 million in series A funding.

Janssen R&D has announced the appointment of Najat Khan as chief data science officer. She was most recently the company’s global head of strategy and operations in R&D, but will now also now run the data science side, which aims to make R&D more efficient by mining data in hopes of finding more pipeline winners more readily.

Sangamo Therapeutics has named D. Mark McClung as executive vice president and chief business officer. McClung was previously vice president and general manager of global oncology commercial at Amgen and, before that, chief commercial officer at Onyx Pharmaceuticals. Sangamo also announced the departure of executive vice president of corporate strategy Stephane Boissel at the end of July. Boissel joined the company in 2018 after serving as CEO of TxCell.

Roche has appointed Aviv Regev (photo) head of Genentech Research and Early Development (gRED) as of 1 August, succeeding Michael Varney, who is retiring from the company at the end of July. Regev, currently chair of the faculty, core institute member and member of the executive leadership team of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, as well as professor of biology at MIT and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, will become a member of Roche’s enlarged corporate executive committee.

Caribou Biosciences has appointed Cherry Thomas senior vice president of clinical development, a newly created position. Thomas joins Caribou from Array Biopharma, where she most recently served as vice president of clinical development of the company’s oncology division.

Elicio Therapeutics has named Esther Welkowsky vice president, clinical operations. Previously, Welkowsky served as executive director of clinical operations at Allogene.