Professionals in the biotherapy world are engaged in a sort of balancing act, juggling the nuances of product development, complex science, leadership dynamics, and patient-centricity. In a recent interview, Abby Waters, Ph.D., senior manager of solution owners at Be The Match BioTherapies, opens up about her decade-long journey navigating these multifaceted challenges. From embracing agile…

When Keri Yale, the company’s head of patient affairs and engagement at Boehringer Ingelheim (BI), joined more than 25 years ago, she recognized a need to put patients at the center of the pharmaceutical industry. Since then, she has spearheaded a transformation towards greater patient centricity at the company that started with HIV/AIDS community engagement…

Her previous roles include a stint as the head of development for oncology cell therapies at Takeda. She also led the North American Innovation Center and R&D Digital Accelerator at Sanofi and held a leadership role in Lilly’s oncology business unit. Bit.bio’s differentiated approach Corzo’s decision to join bit.bio was rooted in the company’s pioneering…

Cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing is rapidly transitioning from scientific curiosity to clinical reality. But the manufacturing complexity of CGTs far outpaces traditional biologics production, presenting a multifaceted challenge that is part scientific, part technological. “The manufacturing process for cell therapies and gene therapies is infinitely more complex than it is for let’s say,…

In an era of rapid AI progress, the quest to pioneer the first AI-developed drug candidates has led to an increasing number of these drug candidates entering clinical trials. One contender is ulotaront, an antipsychotic drug, that fared well in a phase 3 schizophrenia study published in NEJM in 2020. Sunovion discovered the drug in…

In collaboration with Colgate-Palmolive, organ-on-a-chip developer Draper has unveiled a gum tissue model that can sustain gum tissue viability for up to 28 days. The timeline far exceeded that of previous models. The research was featured in Communications Biology, an imprint of Nature. Else Vedula, a senior researcher at Draper, described the gum tissue model…

From her early days as a research assistant at UCLA, to her work as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, Deepcell co-founder and CEO Maddison Mahdokht Masaeli has actively engaged in the field of biomedical engineering. Now, Masaeli and her team at Deepcell, a company she co-founded in 2017, are introducing a new strategy to drug…

The gene therapy platform company Capsida Biotherapeutics (Thousand Oaks, California) is gearing up to unveil initial data on its engineered adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids at the upcoming American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) 26th Annual Meeting, held May 16–20 in Los Angeles. In developing these capsids, Capsida Chief Scientific Officer Susan Catalano explained…

As drug discovery evolves, digital pathology platforms are playing a vital role in streamlining preclinical R&D processes and accelerating drug discovery. Proscia‘s Concentriq for Research reflects this trend. Earlier this year, we profiled PathAI’s AISight, a digital pathology platform designed to support AI-driven research. To learn more about Proscia’s digital pathology technology, we caught up with…

Suzette DiMascio is a prominent figure in the specialty pharmacy industry with nearly three decades of experience and a relentless commitment to improving patient access to care. Currently serving as Executive Vice President at the biopharmaceutical and plasma product supplier FFF Enterprises (Temecula, California), she also sits on several boards, including ICON International, Zensights, and…

LeAnn Kuhlmann-Qi is the chief commercial officer of Columbia, Missouri–based Endevica Bio. The company’s lead drug candidate is TCMCB07, a peptide melanocortin-4 antagonist for cachexia stemming from cancer and other chronic conditions. Holding an MBA. from the University of Missouri, Kuhlmann-Qi has extensive experience managing the business aspects of early-stage biotechnology companies. She is also…

At ASH 2022, Roche (SWX: ROG) subsidiary Genentech presented new data demonstrating the potential of glofitamab and mosunetuzumab, its investigational CD20xCD3 T-cell engaging bispecific antibodies, as fixed-duration, off-the-shelf treatment options for two types of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) – large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) and follicular lymphoma (FL), respectively. “The new data demonstrated durable and impressive patient…

Last year, the Biden administration drafted an executive order that promoted competition in the U.S. economy across several industries, including pharma and biotech. The focus on the pharma industry was not surprising, given Biden’s campaign pledge to curb drug pricing. To that end, the Biden administration has explored a variety of approaches, according to Robin Adelstein, the…

The clinical-stage biopharma CinCor is developing baxdrostat, a highly selective, oral small molecule inhibitor of aldosterone synthase, for hypertension. Catherine Pearce, chief operating officer and co-founder of CinCor, acknowledges that the company has received criticism for its plan to bring a new drug into the highly genericized blood pressure control market. “The reality is that…

The biosimilars firm Alvotech (Nasdaq:ALVO) has announced that its CEO, Mark Levick, will retire. As of January 1, the company will install Robert Wessman, executive chairman and founder, as its top exec. Reykjavik, Iceland–based Alvotech also announced that it had retained Hafrun Fridriksdottir as its chief operating officer. Fridriksdottir was formerly the executive vice president…

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Amgen v. Sanofi could have far-reaching consequences for the biotech industry. The court will consider how much a patent must disclose to comply with enablement requirements. In February 2021, the Federal Circuit ruled that two Amgen patents (8,829,165 and 8,859,741) for the cholesterol drug Repatha (evolocumab) do not meet…

Tanya Sharma, the co-founder of the consulting firm Assurea LLC (Raleigh, North Carolina), helps startups in cell and gene therapy, biotech and food tech implement quality compliance frameworks. Within life sciences, the company helps clients “move from clinical to commercial, or preclinical to clinical,” Sharma said. “We help clients navigate regulatory requirements.” Sharma is also…

Founded in 2017, VeriSIM Life (San Francisco) has a quest to use biosimulation technology to streamline drug discovery and development. The company’s BIOiSIM virtual drug development engine helps pharma and biotech companies optimize R&D spending. The company’s founder and CEO, Dr. Jo Varshney, also wants to help reduce the need for animal testing in drug…

In 2021, Cherese Paloni founded MDliaison to connect healthcare sales reps with health care companies. After working as a sales rep, Paloni determined to address the high turnover rate in the life sciences industry. After determining that the high turnover in the non-health-care-provider community is a symptom of an antiquated onboarding process, Paloni decided to…

In September, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, which would lift an 84-year-old federal mandate for animal testing for toxicity studies. While the bill doesn’t ban animal testing outright, it would allow drug developers to use alternatives when feasible. The Senate has sent the bill, also known as S. 5002, to…

The biomedical modeling and simulation company Metrum Research Group (MetrumRG) has promoted Michelle Johnson to be its CEO, succeeding founder Marc Gastonguay. Johnson had served as the chief operating officer of the Tariffville, Connecticut–based company, where she helped assemble the company’s business team. In her new role as CEO, Johnson looks forward to assisting clients…

Ensysce Biosciences CEO Lynn Kirkpatrick oversees the development of novel medicines to reduce or eliminate prescription drug abuse. The La Jolla, California-based company’s oxycodone prodrug candidate PF614 is now in a Phase 2 clinical trial. It is designed to offer similar pain relief as prescription opioids with a limited risk of drug abuse and addiction.…

Dr. Susan Galbraith, executive vice president of oncology R&D at AstraZeneca, says her entry into the pharmaceutical industry was serendipitous. “I always wanted to be a doctor, and during medical school, I was fascinated by the science behind how cancer happens and what we can do to better treat it,” she said. After following this…

Ferring Pharmaceuticals Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Elizabeth Garner guides clinical development, medical affairs, pharmacovigilance, project planning and regulatory affairs. Garner has almost 30 years of experience in medicine and industry. Before joining Ferring in 2022, Garner held chief medical officer roles for biotech firm ObsEva and women’s healthcare company Agile Therapeutics. Earlier, she held leadership…

In January 2020, rare disease biopharma Insmed (Nasdaq: INSM) hired Sara Bonstein as its chief financial officer. At that point, Bonstein had more than 15 years of operational and financial experience in the life sciences industry. In the following interview highlighting her role as a female pharma leader, Bonstein shares what initially attracted her to…