Gritstone Oncology has announced the appointment of Steve E. Krognes (right) to the company's board of directors. Krognes brings more than 25 years of finance and life sciences industry experience to Gritstone. He currently serves as the CFO of Denali Therapeutics. Previously, he was a member of the executive committee at Genentech and also represented Genentech on the board and executive committee of the California Life Science Association and served as chairman of the Genentech Access to Care Foundation.

“We are thrilled to welcome Steve to our board of directors as we work to advance our lead neoantigen immunotherapy, GRANITE-001, toward clinical trials,” said Andrew Allen, president and CEO of Gritstone Oncology. “Steve's life sciences industry experience will be a valuable addition to Gritstone.”

Gilead Sciences has announced the appointment of Gregg Alton as chief patient officer, a newly created role that will facilitate access to the company's medicines and increase focus on reaching patients. Alton joined the company in 1999 and was most recently executive vice president of corporate and medical affairs. Gilead also announced that Diana Brainard, who joined in 2010 and served most recently as vice president, clinical research, liver diseases, has been promoted to senior vice president, HIV and emerging viral infections. Finally, chief medical officer Andrew Cheng has decided to leave Gilead to pursue other opportunities. Chang joined Gilead in 1999 to lead the company's development-stage programs in HIV/AIDS. He was named executive vice president in 2015 and CMO in March.

Theodore (Ted) T. Ashburn, previously Moderna Therapeutics' head of oncology development, has been named president and CEO of Oncorus. Oncorus cofounder and former CEO Mitchell Finer has been named executive chairman.

BeyondSpring has announced the appointment of Richard J. Daly as COO, with responsibility for global commercial operations, business development, strategic partnering and alliance management. He was previously executive vice president at Takeda Pharmaceuticals US and president of AstraZeneca's US diabetes subsidiary. Most recently, Daly served as CEO, president and chairman of Neuralstem.

IGM Biosciences has appointed Julie Hambleton to its board of directors. Hambleton has over 25 years of academic and industry experience, including 15 years as a leader in preclinical and clinical development at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Five Prime Therapeutics, Clovis Oncology and Genentech. She currently serves as senior vice president, chief medical officer and head of development at Ideaya Biosciences.

John Hood has been named to the board of directors of Actavalon. He was the founder and CEO of Impact Biomedicines, which was acquired by Celgene in 2018 in a deal worth up to $7 billion. Prior to founding Impact, Hood was the cofounder and chief scientific officer of Samumed.

Joan Janulis has been appointed senior vice president of global regulatory affairs at privately held Slayback Pharma. She served most recently as vice president and head of the regulatory practice at Lachman Consultants and has held various executive positions at Vensun, Faulding/Purepac Pharmaceutical (now Actavis), Ivax Pharmaceuticals (now Teva) and Able Laboratories.

GreenLight Biosciences has named Mick Messman as chief commercial officer. He previously headed the seed-applied and biologicals crop protection business at the Corteva Agriscience division of DowDuPont.

Cellular immunotherapy developer Cell Medica (London) has appointed Chris Nowers CEO and executive director. He joins the company from Kite Pharma, where he was head of Europe and responsible for the full commercialization of the CAR-T therapy Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel).

Chairman of the board Steven Paul has been appointed CEO of Karuna Pharmaceuticals. Company founder and board director Andrew Miller has assumed the role of COO. Paul spent 17 years at Eli Lilly and Company and served in senior roles including executive vice president for science and technology and president of the Lilly Research Laboratories.

Aldeyra Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Joshua Reed (right) as CFO, succeeding Stephen Tulipano. Reed has over 20 years of financial operations, strategy, and investment banking experience, most recently serving as vice president and head of finance for Bristol-Myers Squibb's US operations.

In conjunction with the completion of a $50 million series A financing, precision genetic medicine company Akouos has expanded its board of directors, adding Arthur Tzianabos, president and CEO of Homology Medicines, and Christopher Smith, former CEO of Cochlear. Akouos also announced the appointment of Michael McKenna as chief medical officer and Jennifer Wellman as senior vice president, regulatory. McKenna is a scientific cofounder of Akouos and director of the division of otology and neurotology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and has been professor of otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School since 2006. Wellman was a cofounder of Spark Therapeutics.

Rupert Vessey and John Hastewell have been elected to the board of directors of Elstar Therapeutics. Vessey is executive vice president and president of global research and early development at Celgene. Hastewell was most recently head of the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research Biologics Center, where he was responsible for the discovery of antibody, protein and nucleic acid-based therapeutics.

Cerenis Therapeutics (Toulouse, France) has named Barbara Yanni to its board of directors as an independent director. Yanni previously served as chief licensing officer for Merck & Co. until her retirement in 2014. She is a board member of three other clinical-stage biotech companies: Trevena, Vaccinex and Symic Bio.