Celsius Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Jeanne Magram (photo) as CSO. Christoph Lengauer, a partner at Third Rock Ventures and cofounder and former interim CSO of Celsius, continues to serve as a scientific advisor and board member. In addition, René Russo has joined Celsius’s board of directors. Magram brings over 25 years of drug discovery and development experience. Before Celsius, she was CSO of Quentis Therapeutics. Previously, she was the founding CSO of Northern Biologics, site head for Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation, and vice president, immunology and inflammation research at Boehringer Ingelheim. Russo has more than 20 years of R&D and commercialization experience in the biopharma industry. She currently serves as CEO of Xilio Therapeutics and was previously president and CEO of Arsanis.

“Jeanne brings deep drug discovery expertise across multiple therapeutic areas and modalities,” said Lengauer. “Her scientific leadership will be invaluable as Celsius leverages its single-cell and machine learning platform to discover the next generation of precision medicines for patients with autoimmune disease and cancer.”

Róisín Armstrong has been appointed head of Rallybio’s lead program, RLYB211. She brings over 25 years of biopharma industry experience, most recently serving as vice president and global medicine team leader at Alexion Pharmaceuticals.

Immatics Biotechnologies has named Cedrik Britten chief medical officer. He most recently served as vice president and head of the oncology cell therapy research unit at GlaxoSmithKline. He succeeds Carsten Reinhardt, who assumes the newly created role of chief development officer. In addition, Stephen Eck has stepped down from his position as chief medical officer at Immatics’ US operations in Houston.

Flagship Pioneering has named Fabrice Chouraqui to the newly created dual role of CEO-partner of Flagship Pioneering and CEO of its portfolio company Cellarity. Chouraqui most recently served as president of Novartis Pharmaceuticals US. He previously held numerous senior leadership positions at Novartis and Bristol-Myers Squib.

Lyndah K. Dreiling has been named senior vice president, clinical development at Spectrum Pharmaceuticals. She was most recently vice president, head of clinical development at Five Prime Therapeutics and previously served as senior director, clinical research oncology at Gilead Sciences.

Elevar Therapeutics has announced that Mark Gelder has been named vice president of medical affairs. Gelder brings 17 years of global medical affairs experience leading therapeutic oncology programs for companies like Pfizer, Wyeth and Bayer.

Mark Genovese has been appointed senior vice president, inflammation at Gilead Sciences. He joins Gilead from Stanford University, where he was on the faculty for more than 21 years and most recently served as the James W. Raitt Professor of Medicine and clinical chief in the division of immunology and rheumatology.

Novartis has named Iya Khalil as global head of the company’s AI Innovation Center. Khalil is a physicist and cofounder of GNS Healthcare (formerly Gene Network Sciences), an AI data analytics company serving the biopharma industry.

Ottoline Leyser, professor of plant development at the University of Cambridge and director of the Sainsbury Laboratory, has been appointed director of UK Research and Innovation, the United Kingdom’s research funding agency. UKRI was established in 2018 as a de facto merger of seven research councils in science, the arts and humanities, with a budget of $8.9 billion.

Professional services firm Ernst & Young has named Biocon chairperson and managing director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year 2020. Mazumdar-Shaw founded Biocon in 1978 with just $500. Under her leadership, the company has evolved from manufacturing pharmaceuticals such as statins and immunosuppressants to discovering, developing and producing biologics to treat chronic diseases such as diabetes. One of the largest employers in the region, with an 11,000-plus workforce, and a pioneer of Bangalore’s technology hub, Biocon has been consistently ranked as one of the highest R&D spenders in India.

Kenneth Rhodes has been appointed to the newly created position of senior vice president, therapeutics discovery at Wave Life Sciences. He was most recently cofounder and CSO of Yumanity Therapeutics.

Lonza has announced the appointment of Pierre-Alain Ruffieux as CEO effective 1 November 2020. Ruffieux has over 20 years of experience in the biopharma industry and currently serves as head of global pharma technical operations at Roche. Before that he held roles of increasing seniority at Novartis.

Gene therapy company Affinia Therapeutics has named Elliott Sigal to its board of directors. Sigal is the former CSO and president of R&D for Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Pandion Therapeutics has announced the appointment of John S. Sundy as chief medical officer. Sundy most recently served as senior vice president and inflammation therapeutic area head at Gilead Sciences. Previously, he was an associate professor of medicine at Duke University and the Duke–National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School.

SwanBio Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Steven Zelenkofske (photo) as chief medical officer. Zelenkofske brings more than 20 years of experience to the SwanBio team, most recently serving as chief medical officer at Achillion Pharmaceuticals and at UniQure.