Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Conor Hale, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Curis moves up COO as CEO Fattaey leaves company
Curis
Chief Operating Officer James Dentzer was named president and CEO following the departure of Ali Fattaey.
Dentzer joined Curis in 2016 as chief financial officer, and was promoted to COO earlier this year to help manage all of the company’s functions outside of R&D. He is also leading the company’s precommercial planning for fimepinostat in relapsed or refractory DLBCL and solid tumors. Before joining Curis, Dentzer held executive leadership roles at Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Amicus Therapeutics, Valeritas and Biogen. FierceBiotech article
Merck's board scraps mandatory retirement to keep CEO Ken Frazier
Merck & Co.
Ken Frazier will stay on as CEO.
Frazier, who became CEO in 2011 and has been with the company since 1992, will remain the top executive after he turns 65 late next year.
“CEO succession has been our top priority, and removing the mandatory retirement policy enables the board to make the best decision concerning the timing of that transition,” said Merck's lead board Director Leslie Brun. FiercePharma article
Bayer’s Americas pharma head takes CEO job at Selecta Biosciences
Selecta Biosciences.
Bayer’s Carsten Brunn, Ph.D., was named president and CEO, effective Dec. 1.
Brunn was most recently president of Bayer’s pharmaceuticals business in the U.S., Canada and Central and Latin America. Prior to that, he was president of Bayer Pharmaceuticals in Japan since 2013. He will take over following the retirement of Werner Cautreels, Ph.D., who plans to stay on as an adviser as the company launches a phase 3 trial of its lead gout program. At Bayer, Brunn will be replaced by Sebastian Guth, chief marketing officer for its global pharma business. FierceBiotech article
> Novartis announced a massive restructuring effort, targeting its business services organization, that all told will see the company's workforce shrink by 19%, from 124,000 to under 100,000 by 2022. Most reductions will come from manufacturing and the company’s 2019 spinoff of its Alcon eye unit, but its business services division will see an additional 700 jobs lost. FiercePharma article
> Gemphire is cutting its staff by a third, including letting go CFO Jeffrey Mathieson and CMO Lee Golden, to save cash following poor results in a phase 2 fatty liver trial. The FDA said it would need more preclinical data before it could schedule an end-of-phase-2 meeting for the company's only drug, gemcabene, in dyslipidemia. FierceBiotech article
> Former Merck clinical research leader Arthur Santora, M.D., Ph.D., is coming out of retirement to serve as the new chief medical officer of Entera Bio. Santora helped develop Merck’s osteoporosis treatment Fosamax before retiring in 2017 as scientific associate VP of clinical research. FierceBiotech article
> Former Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez joined uBiome's board of directors, alongside the company's $83 million raise and launch of a new site in Cambridge, Massachusetts. FierceBiotech article
> NodThera named Adam Keeney, Ph.D., as president and CEO, as the company establishes a new office in the Boston area. Chief Scientific Officer Alan Watt, Ph.D., who has served as interim CEO since the company's launch, will now become its full-time CSO. Keeney joins from Sanofi Genzyme, where he served as global head of business development. Release
> Tocagen appointed Mohamed Ladha as VP and head of its global commercial operations, as it aims for regulatory approvals for its oncology products in the U.S. and other markets. Most recently, Ladha led the U.S. lung cancer portfolio at Takeda Oncology, where he was responsible for the launch of Alunbrig. Release
> PharmaBlock brought on Shijie Zhang as chief technology officer. Zhang joins from Agios Pharmaceuticals, where he was director of process chemistry, API manufacturing and CMC. Release
> Pfizer is hoping to add up to 350 employees at its troubled sterile injectables plant in Kansas over the coming weeks. FiercePharma article
> Cambrex is expanding its facilities in High Point, N.C. The API-maker expects to triple the number of employees at the site to 150, and establish a center of excellence for API clinical supply and process development. FiercePharma article
> Amgen has thrown its weight behind a new organization that aims to transform the Los Angeles area into a life sciences hot spot, as a founding sponsor of BioLA. The life sciences industry already directly employs 300,000 Californians through its more than 3,200 companies. FierceBiotech article