Tensha Therapeutics, Inc.

Entering the second half of 2022, biopharma and life sciences companies from across the globe strengthen their leadership teams with new additions to the c-suite, including legal counsel, presidents, chief medical officers and more. Check out these BioSpace Movers & Shakers. Evommune, Inc. – Gregory S. Moss was named chief corporate strategy and legal officer of the California-based company. Moss most recently served as executive vice president, general counsel & corporate secretary, and chief compliance officer at Kadmon Holdings, Inc., which is now a Sanofi Company. Prior to joining Kadmon in 2012, Moss served as a solicitor in the corporate risk department of a large Australian law firm. Maravai Life Sciences – Peter Leddy joined San Diego-based Maravai as executive vice president and chief administrative officer, a newly-created role. Prior to joining the company full-time, Leddy served as a consultant to Maravai. Before that, he was chief human resources officer at Berkeley Lights and held the same role at Life Technologies and Invitrogen. He held similar positions outside of the life sciences at Dell and PepsiCo. Aptose Biosciences – Fletcher Payne was named senior vice president, chief financial officer of Aptose. Payne most recently served as CFO of Syapse. He served in a CFO capacity and senior financial positions at CytomX Therapeutics, Plexxikon Inc., Rinat Neuroscience Corporation, Dynavax Technologies Corporation, and Cell Genesys, among others. Zentalis Pharmaceuticals – Zentalis Pharmaceuticals named Andrea Paul as general counsel and corporate secretary. Before Zentalis, Paul served as general counsel and corporate secretary at LogicBio Therapeutics, Inc. Previously, she held increasing responsibility at Akebia Therapeutics, Inc., culminating in the role of vice president of legal. Before Akebia, she served as senior corporate counsel at Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Bright Minds Biosciences – Vancouver-based Bright Minds announced that Alan Kozikowski will no longer serve in the role of chief scientific officer. The company did not specify the reason for Kozikowski’s departure. A search for a new CSO is underway. Jan Torleif Pedersen, a member of the board of directors and former executive at Lundbeck, will serve as the interim CSO until the position is filled. TCR² Therapeutics – Industry and finance veteran Eric Sullivan was named CFO. Prior to TCR², Sullivan served as president, CFO and chief operating officer of Triplet Therapeutics. Before that, he led finance as SVP at Gemini Therapeutics and Oncorus. Earlier in his career, Sullivan held senior financial management positions at bluebird bio and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. Dunad Therapeutics – Pearl Huang was named chief executive officer of England’s Dunad Therapeutics. Prior to Dunad, she was president and CEO of Cygnal Therapeutics, founded by Flagship Pioneering, where she was also a venture partner. Earlier, she held leadership roles at Roche as SVP of therapeutic modalities. At GlaxoSmithKline, she was vice president, and global head of discovery partnerships with academic. At Merck, Huang was vice president, oncology franchise integrator. She was also a founder and acting CSO of Beigene. Huang serves on the board of directors for KSQ Therapeutics, Waters Corporation and BB Biotech. DTx Pharma, Inc. – Peter Condon was named chief business officer. Condon has held positions as the vice president and head of business development at Gossamer Bio, and senior roles in business development and commercial planning at Calico Life Sciences, Alexion Pharmaceuticals, and Genentech. NeuBase Therapeutics – William Mann was appointed president and will continue to serve as COO. Prior to joining NeuBase, Mann served as the president, CEO, and board member of Helsinn Therapeutics U.S. Before that, he was vice president of corporate development at Sapphire Therapeutics. Mann began his professional career at Novartis, where he led a multidisciplinary drug discovery program and later served as director of business development. Amolyt Pharma – France-based Amolyt named Mark Sumeray as CMO. Sumeray joins Amolyt from Amryt Pharmaceuticals, where he has served as CMO since September 2016. Prior to Amryt, Sumeray served as chief medical officer at Aegerion Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career, he led the U.S. cardiovascular and metabolic medical affairs team at Bristol-Myers Squibb. GV20 Therapeutics – GV20 bolstered its leadership team with several appointments. Shirley Liu, a company co-founder, was named CEO. Liu was previously a Biostatistics and Computational Biology professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Steven Landau, a former executive at Shape Pharmaceuticals and Tensha Therapeutics, was named CMO. Genentech veteran Ying Gong was named CBO. Kures Therapeutics – Chad Beyer was named CEO of Kures, an atai Life Sciences company. Outgoing Kures CEO Srinivas Rao will continue to support and advise Kures’ programs from his role at atai Life Sciences. MediWound Ltd. – Israel’s MediWound named Tzvi Palash as COO. He joins MediWound from Enlivex, where he leads the design and construction of the new cGMP manufacturing facility. Before that, he served as COO at Gamida Cell and was a general manager at ColBar LifeScience. Earlier in his career, Palash held operational roles at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Interpham Laboratories. NGM Biopharmaceuticals – Siobhan Nolan Mangini, the company’s CFO, has also been named president of the company. Prior to joining NGM Bio, Nolan Mangini served as president and CFO of Castlight Health, a San Francisco-based healthcare technology company. Before that, she worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company, specializing in health care and private equity practices. Chicago ARC – J&J executive Kate Merton has been named the executive director of Chicago ARC, a new venture collaborative focused on accelerating innovative health equity solutions. Prior to the ARC, Merton ran Anthem’s digital incubator and at J&J, Merton was the Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS New York City, Boston and Philadelphia. Fate Therapeutics – Celgene veteran Brian T. Powl was named chief commercial officer. At Celgene, Powl served as the global commercial CAR-T lead. Most recently, Powl was head of commercial development and marketing at MEI Pharma, Inc. Prior to Celgene, Powl held sales and marketing positions at Novartis Oncology and Centocor, Inc.

June 29, 2022 12:00 UTC - Esteemed cancer researcher and co-founder of GV20 Shirley Liu appointed as Chief Executive Officer - Drug development leaders Steven Landau and Ying Gong named to executive roles CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- GV20 Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company using cutting-edge genomics and artificial intelligence approaches to discover next-generation cancer therapeutics, announced three key executive appointments to accelerate its growth and transition into a clinical-stage company. Pioneering cancer researcher and co-founder Shirley Liu, Ph.D. was named the Chief Executive Officer; former executive at Shape Pharmaceuticals and Tensha Therapeutics, Steven Landau, M.D., became the Chief Medical Officer; and Genentech veteran Ying Gong, Ph.D. was appointed Chief Business Officer. Shirley Liu is an innovative and prolific computational cancer biologist. Having been on the faculty at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health for almost 20 years, she has made significant contributions to the understanding of gene regulation and drug response in cancer. Dr. Liu and Ted Xiao, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, co-founded GV20 Therapeutics in 2016 with the goal of applying high-throughput genomics and computational approaches to the discovery and development of novel cancer drugs. The company’s efforts have led to the identification of novel targets and drug candidates including its first candidate, XBH25, a novel NK checkpoint inhibitor targeting solid tumors. GV20 expects to IND for XBH25 in the second half of 2022. “We are excited to welcome Steve and Ying and their expertise to the GV20 team,” said CEO Shirley Liu. “Ying and Steve both bring a wealth of experience advancing innovative oncology pipelines and building high-performing teams. That Ying and Steve have chosen to help lead GV20 at this crucial inflection point speaks to the power of our drug discovery capabilities and the potential of our pipeline. With their leadership, we are excited to advance XBH25 toward the clinic, and to discover more promising candidates at speed and scale with our integrated STEAD genomics and AI platform. We are well-positioned to bring next-generation immunotherapies to cancer patients.” ABOUT SHIRLEY LIU, PH.D. Shirley Liu, Ph.D., co-founded GV20 Therapeutics in 2016 and joined the company full-time as the CEO in 2022. A highly cited cancer researcher, Dr. Liu was previously a Professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the co-director of the Center for Functional Cancer Epigenetics at Dana-Farber. With more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, her research has refined the understanding of hormone receptor therapies, epigenetic inhibitors, gamma-secretase inhibitors, receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors, and immune checkpoint inhibitors in different cancers. She is a fellow of the International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and was a Breast Cancer Research Foundation Investigator (2017-2021). Liu is a recipient of the Sloan Research Fellowship (2008), Weitzman Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award from the Endocrine Society (2016), ISCB Innovator Award (2020), and the Benjamin Franklin Award for Open Access in the Life Sciences (2020). Dr. Liu received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Informatics and Ph.D. minor in Computer Science from Stanford. ABOUT STEVEN LANDAU, M.D. Steven Landau, M.D., has more than 25 years of experience developing products for the treatment of cancers and inflammatory diseases, including the FDA-approved monoclonal antibody Entyvio®. He has previously served as Chief Medical Officer at oncology-focused companies including Shape Pharmaceuticals and Tensha Therapeutics. Dr. Landau has also supported product development at OraVax, LeukoSite, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and Praecis Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Landau earned his M.D. from Case Western Reserve University, and completed his post-graduate training at the Beth Israel Hospital and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. ABOUT YING GONG, PH.D. Ying Gong, Ph.D., is an experienced strategist, drug developer and team leader. Most recently, she served as Project Team Leader for oncology at Genentech, where she led drug development programs and business development projects from late-stage research to clinical proof-of-concept. Dr. Gong also served as Senior Director of Portfolio Strategy and Planning, shaping Genentech's industry-leading R&D strategy. Prior to that, she held roles in medical affairs, market access, global product strategy, and market planning at Genentech and Roche, and worked on a broad range of projects including new indication launches of Perjeta® and Avastin®. She began her career as a management consultant at Bain & Company. Dr. Gong earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the California Institute of Technology, and an M.A. in Molecular Genetics from Smith College. ABOUT GV20 THERAPEUTICS GV20 Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company with 50 employees and sites in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Shanghai, China. The company closed a series B financing led by Coatue Management in October 2021. GV20 uses high-throughput functional genomics and artificial intelligence to identify novel cancer immunology drug targets and antibody therapeutics. The company’s pipeline includes XBH25, a novel NK checkpoint inhibitor targeting solid tumors, which is currently progressing toward the clinic. “GV20” references one of the most important acupoints for the human body, symbolizing the company’s mission to find and exploit vulnerabilities in cancer biology. To learn more about GV20, please visit and follow the company on LinkedIn and Twitter.