Hunter Smith, chief financial officer of Rhythm Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RYTM), has been appointed interim CEO. He takes the place of Keith Gottesdiener, who announced in January that he planned to leave his executive positions and the board of directors after Rhythm submitted a new drug application for setmelanotide. The application was filed with the FDA […]

Viracta Therapeutics has appointed Lisa Rojkjaer as its chief medical officer to oversee the clinical-stage precision oncology company’s efforts to advance treatments targeting virus-associated cancers. Rojkjaer, who will start with the company on May 1, most recently served in the same role at Nordic Nanovector, a precision oncology company in Oslo, Norway. Previously she held […]

The local biotech ecosystem is growing up thanks to its innovative science and collaborative ecosystem, advantages that put it nearly on par with the nation’s top life science regions, according to industry veterans. San Diego has long been considered a second-tier primary biopharma hub in terms of number of companies and venture capital raised, falling […]

Sanofi is joining the array of companies pursuing a COVID-19 vaccine based on messenger RNA (mRNA), an experimental genetic technology intended to coax the body’s cells into producing proteins that treat a disease or spark immunity to one. Sanofi (NYSE: SNY) announced Friday that it will develop COVID-19 vaccine candidates with Translate Bio (NASDAQ: TBIO), […]

Clinical-stage oncology company Fusion Pharmaceuticals has appointed James O’Leary as its chief medical officer. Fusion is developing new radiopharmaceuticals—pharmaceutical drugs containing radioactive isotopes—to treat a range of types of cancer. O’Leary’s experience includes roles at biotechs including ImmunoGen (NASDAQ: IMGN), Idera Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IDRA), Array Biopharma, and Deciphera (NASDAQ: DCPH), and pharma companies including Takeda […]

Future improvements in cancer care are most likely to stem from combinations therapies and data-driven prevention efforts, as well as breakthrough drugs. That’s the message life sciences experts shared this week during a webcast on the topic of “oncology’s next decade” recorded for the BIO-Europe Spring partnering conference. The event is produced by EBD Group, […]

Kallyope, one of New York’s best funded biotechs, has secured more than $100 million to move two of its programs into the clinic—including its most advanced, an experimental drug designed to treat obesity. The company was founded in 2015 with $44 million to leverage new learnings about the “gut-brain axis”—pings of communication between our guts […]

Gene therapy company Genprex (NASDAQ: GNPX) has added two new executives to its management team: Catherine Vaczy as chief strategy officer and Michael Redman as chief operating officer. Both are executive vice presidents. Vaczy most recently provided strategic advisory services to early stage biotechnology companies. Previously she co-founded and served for a decade on the […]

A group of scientists and physicians at UC San Diego Health and the UCSD School of Medicine has arranged a partnership with five diagnostics markers that it says will bring the health system’s capacity to test for coronavirus to as many as 1,500 tests daily sometime in early April. Amid a lack of available tests […]

Eureka Therapeutics, which has been developing methods to facilitate the development of cell therapies that can treat solid cancers, has raised $45 million to prove out its technologies in the clinic. To enhance its chances of success, the Emeryville, CA-based company has struck an agreement to work with Lyell Immunopharma, another San Francisco Bay Area […]

Three hundred Takeda employees from the Japanese pharma giant’s California research center have been working from home for 10 days straight. Neurocrine Biosciences, one of the few commercial-stage biotechs in town, is working to ensure the animals housed in its vivarium are appropriately minded. Ciara Kennedy, CEO of clinical-stage antifungal therapy developer Amplyx, is facing […]

Morphic Therapeutic (NASDAQ: MORF) on Tuesday named Peter Linde as its chief medical officer. Linde was most recently vice president of medical research at Acceleron Pharma (NASDAQ: XLRN), where he oversaw the design and execution of clinical trials including late-stage development work on luspatercept, a drug the FDA approved last year for patients with the […]