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…

Yvonne Duckworth, CRB’s director of digital technology, says she was fortunate to enter the pharmaceutical industry straight out of college. “My first job, 31 years ago, was a wonderful opportunity as an automation engineer with an engineering company servicing the pharmaceutical industry,” she said. Duckworth has maintained her pharma focus at CRB, where she has…

The electronic clinical outcome assessments (eCOA) firm THREAD has appointed Kim Boericke to be its first chief delivery officer. In her role, Boericke (pronounced “Berica”) will focus on supporting customers in implementing the THREAD platform to support decentralized clinical trial data collection. In addition, she will assist THREAD with decentralized clinical trials, working to include patients…

Kansas City, Missouri–based engineering, construction and consulting company CRB has named Valerie Silva as director of procurement. With experience in cost optimization, project management and supply chain issues in the automotive and pharmaceutical industries, Silva will work within CRB’s innovative Global Technical Operations team. Silva will help the company’s clients address challenges related to speed…

Two decades ago, the Canadian CDMO BioVectra installed Heather Delage as its director of business development. She was named vice president of business development in 2014. In 2021, she assumed the role of chief commercial officer. At the outset of her tenure with BioVectra, the company was beginning its journey to invest in large-scale cGMP…

The late 1980s and the 1990s were something of a gold rush for pharmaceutical companies focused on CNS drug development — especially those developing psychiatric drugs. In 1988, Eli Lilly introduced the blockbuster SSRI Prozac (fluoxetine), then a new type of antidepressant. Big Pharma companies launched several SSRIs in the years that followed.  By the…

The synthetics biology company CB Therapeutics recently named Tiffany Hurd as its new business development lead. At Carlsbad, California-based CB Therapeutics, Hurd will focus on creating business partnerships with companies in the psychedelic, cannabinoid and food tech industries.  In May, CB Therapeutics won a patent covering the use of microorganisms to produce psychedelic tryptamines and…

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) remains a bewildering disease. Although it is rare, it is not uncommon. The lifetime risk of developing the condition is roughly 1 in 300 by age 85.  The heterogeneity of the disease is also unique, said Tammy Pighin Moore, CEO of the ALS Society of Canada. “About 5% to 10% of the people diagnosed…

Biopharma services company Allucent has announced that it has named Katy Moore to lead a team of pharmacometricians to create custom modeling and simulation approaches for clinical trial designs. Moore’s official title will be president of clinical pharmacology, modeling and simulation (CPMS). “What inspired me to join Allucent was the opportunity to work for a…

Mission Bio (San Francisco) is a growth-stage company spun out of the microfluidics lab at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in 2014. “We have been commercial since late 2017,” said the company’s CEO, Yan Zhang, in a recent interview. Initially focusing on oncology, Mission Bio has cast its gaze across precision medicine to…

Focused on developing peripheral nerve regeneration and repair products, Axogen (Nasdaq:AXGN) announced that the Phase 3 RECON study met its primary endpoint in comparing its Avance nerve graft to conduits in digital nerve injuries. The primary endpoint was the return of sensory function based on static two-point discrimination. This test measures the ability to detect…

At the heart of Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE:JNJ) $6.5 billion acquisition of Momenta Pharmaceuticals in 2020 is a portfolio of drug candidates for immune-mediated diseases. One of the promising compounds in the acquisition is nipocalimab, which Janssen sees as a potential “pipeline in a pathway.” Nipocalimab holds promise for an array of diseases, ranging from…

The contract research organization (CRO) Syneos Health has promoted Michelle Keefe to be its CEO and a member of its board. Keefe was previously the president, medical affairs and commercial solutions at Morrisville, North Carolina-based Syneos. The company’s departing CEO, Alistair Macdonald, is retiring after working at the company for two decades. Macdonald will serve…

The psychoactive compound 5-methoxy-2-aminoindane (MEAI) is unique among psychedelics with therapeutic potential.  First, the drug could be self-administered. Second, it is patented, unlike psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine. And while psychedelic drug developers tend to focus on indications such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, MEAI could potentially treat alcoholism.  MEAI…

The self-proclaimed “spatial biology company” Akoya Biosciences (NSDQ:AKYA) has appointed Marilee Moy as its chief people officer. Moy has more than three decades of experience in human resources and has worked for several life science companies, including Questcor, Counsyl, Tails Biomedical, Genentech and Johnson & Johnson. Akoya, which went public last year, had raised more…

Direct-to-patient clinical trial company Medable (Palo Alto, California) has recently hired MaryAnne Rizk as its chief strategy officer. Rizk was IQVIA’s former senior vice president, digital R&D strategy.  Rizk was also recently named a PharmaVoice 100 leader. Rizk is also a graduate advisor and an adjunct professor for the school of engineering at the Stevens Institute of…