Mathai Mammen

Precision medicine developer FogPharma has announced the appointment of Mathai Mammen as chairman, president and CEO, effective June 2023. Mammen brings global R&D and corporate leadership experience to FogPharma, most recently serving as executive vice president, pharmaceuticals, R&D at Johnson & Johnson. He began his career as founder and head of R&D at Theravance and subsequently held senior R&D roles at Merck. FogPharma co-founder Gregory Verdine will transition from his current role as chairman and CEO to vice chairman on the company’s board of directors.

“Mathai is a world-renowned innovator in drug discovery, development and company building who has created great teams, businesses and numerous important medicines over 25 years in small and large pharma,” said Verdine. “I am extremely excited to collaborate with Mathai as he takes over the reins of the company. This is the perfect time to transition FogPharma’s leadership as we prepare to advance our first development candidate, FOG-001, a first-and-only-in-class direct TCF-blocking β-catenin inhibitor, into clinical development for cancer in 2023.”

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Susan Catalano has been appointed CSO of Capsida Biotherapeutics. She joins from Coda Biotherapeutics, where she served in the same capacity. Before that, Catalano was co-founder, CSO and a member of the board of directors of Cognition Therapeutics.

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Marseille-based ImCheck Therapeutics has appointed Thomas Civik chairman of its board of directors. Civik has 30 years of biopharma industry experience, most recently serving as CEO of Five Prime Therapeutics.

Gabriel M. Cohn has been named chief medical officer of gene editing company iECURE. He joins the company from Avrobio, where he served as chief medical officer of homology and vice president of clinical development.

Allen Fienberg has been appointed chairman and CEO of Rumi Scientific. He joins the company after serving for more than 20 years as vice president of business development at Intra-Cellular Therapies, which he co-founded in 2002.

Sage Therapeutics has named Jessica Federer to its board of directors. She currently serves as managing partner at Supernode Ventures and was previously Bayer AG’s first chief digital officer.

Syndax Pharmaceuticals has named Neil Gallagher president, head of R&D. He brings 20 years of industry experience, most recently serving as chief medical officer, vice president, head of development at AbbVie.

Michael L. Meyers has been appointed chief medical officer of Flare Therapeutics. He was previously chief medical officer and senior vice president, chief development officer at Syndax Pharmaceuticals. In addition, Flare has announced the promotions of Daphne Karydas, formerly COO and CFO, to president and CFO and Michaela Bowden, formerly senior vice president, biology & translation, to chief development officer, and the appointment of Jigar Raythatha, venture partner at Third Rock Ventures, to its board of directors.

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HanAll Biopharma has announced the appointment of Su-jin Park as co-CEO alongside Sean Jeong, who was named CEO in March 2021. Park was most recently head of the prescription drug marketing and sales division at Daewoong Pharmaceutical.

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Netherlands-based Azafaros has announced the appointments of Silvia Ragno as COO and Henrik Torp Nielsen as head of finance. Ragno is co-founder and COO of Stargazer Pharmaceuticals. Nielsen previously served as European head of business development finance, oncology at Novartis.

Privately held Lucy Therapeutics has named Christopher J. Winrow CSO. Winrow was previously vice president and head of translational medicine at Cyclerion Therapeutics.