Rheos Medicines has announced the appointment of Dania Rabah (photo) as CSO. Rabah brings over 15 years of experience building and leading teams of scientists in drug discovery and early development. She previously served as head of the drug discovery incubator, research and early development at Biogen, where she and her team created a robust and innovative pipeline, advanced programs across multiple therapeutic areas and treatment modalities, advanced therapeutic area strategies to support development, and implemented research operating model improvements to support a biology- and target-driven development approach.

“Rheos is delighted to welcome Dania to our team. Her deep knowledge of immunology, coupled with her extensive experience building research teams and advancing programs from inception through clinical proof of concept, makes her an ideal addition to our rapidly growing company,” said president and CEO Barbara Fox.

Danny Bar-Zohar has been named global head of development at Merck KGaA, succeeding Luciano Rossetti. Bar-Zohar was most recently partner at London-based VC Syncona and, before that, served as global head, clinical development and analytics for Novartis.

Noveome Therapeutics has named Michelle Berrey and Annamaria Kausz to its board of directors. Berrey, formerly CEO of Chimerix, is a scientific advisor for ViiV Healthcare. Kausz currently serves as chief medical officer of Allena Pharmaceuticals.

Sensei Biotherapeutics has named Anupama Hoey as chief business officer. She joins the company after having served as chief business officer at Second Genome and Invenra, and as vice president of business development at Arcus Biosciences.

Diadem, currently developing a blood-based test to predict early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, has appointed Paul Kinnon as CEO. He previously served as chief executive at PredictImmune, Transgenomic and ZyGEM.

Replimune has appointed Tanya Lewis to its board of directors. Lewis currently serves as executive vice president and chief regulatory and quality officer at Karyopharm Therapeutics.

Hamburg-based Topas Therapeutics has named Klaus Martin CEO, replacing Timm Jessen. Martin was president of Apobiologix and CSO of Polpharma Biologics, and led business development, licensing and portfolio management during his eight years at Sandoz.

Ameet Nathwani has been named CEO and a member of the board of directors at Dewpoint Therapeutics. He has over 25 years of pharma industry experience and has led the development of more than 20 drugs. He most recently served as chief medical officer, chief digital officer and executive committee member at Sanofi. Before Sanofi, Nathwani was global head of medical affairs and a member of the pharma executive committee at Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

Chris Nowers has been appointed CEO of Ireland’s ONK Therapeutics. He brings more than 25 years of biopharma industry experience, most recently serving as head of Europe for Kite Pharma and CEO of Cell Medica.

Flagship Pioneering has named Tuyen Ong as CEO-partner. Ong served as chief development officer at Nightstar Therapeutics until its takeover by Biogen, whereupon he became head of Biogen’s ophthalmology franchise. At Flagship, Ong will contribute to the leadership team and sit on the boards of its biotechs while also serving as CEO of gene therapy startup Ring Therapeutics.

CytoDyn has named Mahboob Rahman as CSO. He was most recently global head of immunology development and pharmacovigilance at Mesoblast and previously president and chief medical officer at Glenmark.

Rostock, Germany–based Centogene has announced that Arndt Rolfs is stepping down as CEO. He is succeeded by Andrin Oswald, currently the delegate for COVID-19 vaccines and immunotherapies for the federal government of Switzerland. Oswald spent four years with the Gates Foundation as director of life science industry partnerships. Previously, he was a business integration executive at GSK and head of Novartis’s vaccines and diagnostics division.

Design Therapeutics has named João Siffert CEO and a member of the board of directors. He joins Design from Abeona Therapeutics, where he served in the same capacities. He has held a number of medical and scientific roles, including chief medical officer and CSO at companies including Nestlé Health Science, Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Ceregene, Avera Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer.

Patrick Soon-Shiong has stepped down as CEO of NantKwest, to be succeeded by Richard Adcock, most recently CEO of Verity Health System and previously chief innovation officer for Sanford Health. Soon-Shiong reportedly wants to devote more of his energy to the fight against SARS-CoV-2. Two of his companies — NantKwest and ImmunityBio — are part of the US government’s Operation Warp Speed, aimed at rapidly developing vaccines and treatments to combat the virus that causes COVID-19.

OS Therapies has named Jutta Wanner (photo) chief technology officer. She joins the company from BlinkBio, where she served as CSO and vice president of research, and helped to develop the next-generation antibody–drug conjugate technology that OS Therapies recently in-licensed.

Sam Whiting has been appointed executive vice president and chief medical officer of Tempest Therapeutics. He previously served as senior vice president of clinical development at Calithera Biosciences.

Copenhagen-based Snipr Biome has named Milan Zdravkovic chief medical officer. Zdravkovic was most recently chief medical officer and head of R&D at Swedish Orphan Biovitrum.