By

Vikas Goyal

18
May
2023

Anthony Mancini of Genmab on Growing Your Company Together with Partners

Anthony Mancini is the chief operating officer of Denmark-based Genmab, one of the leading innovators of antibody therapies for patients living with cancer and other serious diseases. After many years working as a behind-the-scenes innovator, Genmab is now becoming a significant commercial entity. In 2021, the company began marketing its first commercial product, Tidvak® (tisotumab vedotin) for the treatment of...
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19
Jul
2022

James Mutamba of Arrakis on Negotiating a Big Amgen Deal at Warp Speed

James Mutamba is the chief business officer of Waltham, Mass.-based Arrakis Therapeutics. It’s a biotech developing small molecules against RNA targets. Arrakis struck its first major pharma partnership in 2020 with Roche. During the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference this past January, Arrakis announced another multi-target collaboration with Amgen to discover and develop small molecule RNA degraders, a new drug class...
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21
Jun
2022

Why Kymab Agreed to be Acquired by Sanofi

UK-based Kymab made headlines back in January 2021. Sanofi agreed to acquire the antibody drug developer for $1.1 billion upfront, plus $350 million in potential milestones. The main attraction for Sanofi was KY1005, a monoclonal antibody targeting OX40L, a regulator of the immune system. Five months before the deal, Kymab announced it hit both primary endpoints of a Phase 2a...
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3
May
2022

Ram Aiyar on Finding Deal Alignment Internally and Externally

Ram Aiyar is currently the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Korro Bio, a company using RNA editing to treat genetic diseases, including Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency. Before he took that job, he was a founder and executive vice president of corporate and business development at Corvidia Therapeutics. That company was acquired by Novo Nordisk in August 2020 for $725 million upfront, and...
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5
Apr
2022

Samantha Truex on How Getting Market Feedback Turned Into M&A for Padlock

Samantha Truex is the CEO of Upstream Bio, a stealthy developer of drugs for inflammatory diseases with $200 million in backing from a syndicate led by OrbiMed. Before her newest venture, Sam had an impressive career as a business development executive, including as the chief business officer of Cambridge, Mass.-based Padlock Therapeutics. That company, a developer of Protein/Peptidyl Arginine Deiminase...
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8
Mar
2022

Praveen Tipirneni on Watching Out for Sleeper Deals

[Editor’s Note: this is part of series of interviews with business development executives about some of the surprises, subtleties, and human aspects of biotech dealmaking.] Praveen Tipirneni is a physician by training, but more than anything it was his work in business development that put him in position to become the CEO of a publicly-traded biotech company – Waltham, Mass.-based...
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8
Feb
2022

Behind the Scenes of BD: Maude Tessier on a Megamerger Curveball

[Editor’s Note: this is part of a series of interviews with business development executives about some of the surprises, subtleties, and human aspects of biotech dealmaking.] Maude Tessier is the chief business officer of Boston-based Ikena Oncology, a developer of targeted small molecule cancer drugs. Like a lot of people in business development, she considers herself a “recovering scientist.” She...
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11
Jan
2022

Brad Prosek on Getting to Know an Unconventional Acquirer

[Editor’s Note: this is the first in a monthly series with business development executives about some of the surprises, subtleties, and human aspects of biotech dealmaking.] Cambridge, Mass.-based Constellation Pharmaceuticals lived through the ups and downs of the epigenetic drug discovery field for a decade, before it exited on a high note last year. The company was acquired by Germany-based...
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