Cambridge, UK–based cell therapies developer Mogrify has announced the appointment of Jane Osbourn (photo) as chair of the board and as a member of the scientific advisory board. Osbourn has over 30 years of experience in biologics discovery and development, most recently as vice president for research and development and site leader at MedImmune (AstraZeneca), formerly Cambridge Antibody Technology. She also serves as chair of the board of directors of the UK BioIndustry Association, a director of Babraham Bioscience Technologies, and a director of Cambridge Enterprise.

Darrin M. Disley, CEO of Mogrify, said: “Dr. Osbourn is an inspirational leader in our industry who has developed numerous life-saving therapies and is renowned for her expertise in drug discovery and development among the global biotech and pharma communities. As chair, her guidance will be invaluable to Mogrify as we build a scalable infrastructure and the capability to develop novel cell therapies addressing musculoskeletal, autoimmune, cancer immunotherapy, ocular and respiratory diseases, as well as generating and licensing novel IP related to cell conversions that exhibit safety, efficacy and scalable manufacturing profiles suitable for development as cell therapies.”

Sarah Boyce has been appointed president, CEO and a member of the board of directors of Avidity Biosciences. She most recently served as president and a member of the board of directors of Akcea Therapeutics, where she led commercialization of the company’s rare disease products.

John Cox has been appointed CEO of Torque Therapeutics, succeeding Bart Henderson. Cox was most recently CEO of Bioverativ, which he shepherded through its $11.6 billion acquisition by Sanofi. He signed on as Torque’s executive chairman in January this year.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has named Lisa DeAngelis physician-in-chief and chief medical officer, replacing José Baselga. DeAngelis was previously chair of the neurology department and cofounder of MSK’s brain tumor center. She joined MSK as a neuro-oncology fellow in 1985.

Michael K. Handley has been appointed CEO and a member of the board of directors of Immune Therapeutics. The company also announced the resignation of its former CEO and director, Noreen Griffin. Handley was most recently chairman and CEO of Aletheia Therapeutics. He holds board positions at Medavate and Symbios Technologies.

Vifor Pharma has appointed as chief medical officer Klaus Henning Jensen, formerly Sanofi’s global therapeutic area head responsible for diabetes, cardiovascular and metabolism development. In addition, Vifor also announced that Dario Eklund, a five-year veteran formerly its head of global business operations and most recently chief commercial officer, has left to pursue other opportunities.

Syed Kazmi has been named CEO of Jubilant Therapeutics. He was most recently head of business development for oncology at Novartis.

Nimbus Therapeutics has appointed Christine Loh as senior vice president, head of biology. She was most recently vice president of translational medicine at Kymera Therapeutics and before that served as executive director of research at Bioverativ.

Neurogene has named Christine Mikail president. Mikail has close to 20 years of experience in the biotech and pharma industries and was most recently a cofounder of neurology specialty pharma Neumentum. Previously, she was chief administrative officer and head of external business development/alliance management & general counsel at Axovant Sciences.

Synlogic has named Richard Riese as chief medical officer and Michael Slater as head of regulatory affairs. Riese most recently served as vice president, clinical development at Alnylam. Slater has over 25 years of experience in preclinical and clinical regulatory strategy development, most recently as head of development operations at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals.

Clinical-stage Five Prime Therapeutics has appointed William “Bill” Ringo as interim CEO, succeeding CEO and board member Aron Knickerbocker, who has resigned to pursue new opportunities. Ringo will continue to serve as chairman of Five Prime’s board of directors. He previously served as president and CEO of Abgenix and as senior vice president of business development, strategy and innovation at Pfizer.

Precision oncology medicine company Black Diamond Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Christopher D. Roberts as CSO, Matt Lucas as vice president of chemistry, and Tai-An Lin as vice president and head of biology. Roberts joins Black Diamond from SR One, the corporate venture capital arm of GlaxoSmithKline, where he was an entrepreneur in residence. Previously, he was vice president of chemistry and early development at Syros Pharmaceuticals. Lucas most recently served as senior director of chemistry at Yumanity Therapeutics and was previously director of chemistry at Cubist Pharmaceuticals. Lin was previously director of IO translational innovation platform and experimental medicine at Merck KGaA/EMD Serono.

Passage Bio has announced the appointments of Gary Romano as chief medical officer and Edgar (Chip) Cale as general counsel. Romano joins Passage Bio from Janssen R&D, where he was the head of clinical development for neurodegenerative disease and the deputy leader of the neurodegenerative disease therapeutic area. Cale was most recently senior vice president of legal corporate functions at GlaxoSmithKline.