Ins & outs: Catalent’s CFO heads to Zoetis

Catalent has named Thomas Castellano as its chief financial officer. Meanwhile, there are changes at Attralus Therapeutics and Centessa. Sit back, relax, and enjoy BioProcess Insider’s Ins & Outs.

First up in our Ins & Outs feature is Catalent, which has named Thomas Castellano to succeed Wetteny Joseph as chief financial officer, effective June 1.

Castellano currently serves at the contract development manufacturing organization (CDMO) as global vice president of operational finance.

Image/iStock: Dilok Klaisataporn

Castellano joined the firm in 2008 as director for financial planning and analysis and has since served in various senior positions, such as vice president and treasurer. Currently, he is a member of Catalent’s executive leadership team and his duties in his current role include providing finance partnership on strategic decisions across the firm’s business units.

“We are delighted to recognize Tom’s continuing contributions and development as a senior executive at Catalent, and I look forward to working with him in his new role,” said CEO John Chiminski. “Today’s smooth succession demonstrates the strength of Catalent’s bench and our proactive planning and executive development efforts.”

After being at the company since 2008, Joseph leaves Catalent to become executive vice president and chief financial officer at Zoetis, an animal health manufacturer of vaccines, medicines, and diagnostic products.

Attralus Therapeutics

Coming in second we have news that ex Purdue Pharma chief Mark Timney has been appointed as Attralus Therapeutics new CEO and a member of its Board of Directors.

Attralus Therapeutics is developing pan-amyloid removal (PAR) therapeutics to bind and remove toxic amyloid, which has the potential to treat all types of systemic amyloidosis.

Timney joins the firm to advance clinical development of its product pipeline and accelerate the firm’s business plan.

“I am excited to lead Attralus, a company built on deep fundamental research in the field of amyloidosis with a strong commitment to delivering life-changing therapies for patients,” said Timney.

He continued: “I see an extraordinary opportunity for Attralus to advance novel pan-amyloid removal therapies that open the potential to treat and reverse disease in patients with all types of systemic amyloidosis.”

Centessa

Thirdly, Biopharma company Centessa Pharmaceuticals has announced Antoine Yver as its Chief Medical Officer.

Yver has over 30 years of global experience in the pharmaceutical space and previously served as the head of oncology R&D at Daiichi Sankyo.

“We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Antoine to our team as CMO,” said Saurabh Saha, CEO of Centessa. “Antoine is a true industry leader with significant experience and success as a drug developer, having developed some of the most impactful oncology drugs in the world. I look forward to partnering with him as we advance our portfolio of preclinical programs into the clinic and progress our four assets currently in clinical development.”

Earlier in his career, Yver held various clinical development roles at Johnson & Johnson, Aventis Pharmaceuticals and AstraZeneca.

It was a pleasure to have you here for this week’s Ins & Outs and we can’t wait for next time.