Fresh off last month’s announcement of five new executive and senior leaders, Opthea Limited has named three more appointees: chief medical officer (CMO), chief financial officer (CFO), and vice president of marketing.
First, a recap thus far.
The last 12 months have seen an overhaul of Opthea U.S. leadership, starting with:
- October 2023
- Fred Guerard, PharmD, and Peter Lang assumed the roles of CEO and CFO, respectively.
- February 2024
- Arshad M. Khanani, MD, MA, FASRS, was appointed chief medical advisor.
- September 2024:
- Daniel Geffken and Mike Campbell were named CFO (on an ad interim basis, taking over from Lang) and chief commercial officer, respectively.
- Concurrently: Dayong Li, PhD; Jenn Watts; and Anthony Bonifazio were appointed senior vice president, Biometrics; vice president, global clinical operations; and vice president, market access, respectively.
Now to these new appointments.
We’ll start with the company’s CMO: Parisa Zamiri, MD, PhD.
- Her new responsibilities: Overseeing clinical development and operations, regulatory medical affairs, and biometrics.
- Her previous position: CMO at Complement Therapeutics.
- Others: Graybug Vision (CMO) and Novartis (vice president, Global Head of Clinical Development and Therapeutic Head for Ophthalmic)
- Background:
- Ophthalmologist by training (clinical experience in medical retina, immunology, and inflammation)
- Led clinical trial group to execute phase 1-4 studies on novel biologics, gene therapies, small molecules, and digital therapeutics for retinal indications (wet age-related macular degeneration [AMD]; geographic atrophy [GA]; retinitis pigmentosa [RP] and dry eye)
Moving on to CFO … which, didn’t they just appoint someone?
Twice, actually, in the last year.
As we mentioned, Peter Lang was named CFO in October 2023, and was then replaced last month with Daniel Geffken (on an ad interim basis, keep in mind).
Now, the company has announced a new CFO: Tom Reilly.
- His previous position: CFO and head of Human Resources at Amarin Corporation
- Others: Cara Therapeutics (CFO); head of finance (Allergan General Medicines); finance head for Oncology (Novartis); CFO (Novartis Pharma Austria); financial controller (Novartis Pharmaceuticals US)
- Background: Over 25 years in finance and administration for life sciences companies (U.S. + globally)
Gotcha. And next up?
Opthea’s new vice president of marketing: Anand Sundaram.
- His previous position: Commercial strategy and market access leadership roles at Astellas (focusing on IZERVAY launch for GA)
- Others: Novartis (second commercial hire building and launching Beovu for wet AMD); Genentech (led launch of Lucentis prefilled syringe in U.S.)
- Background: More than 10 years of commercial experience in brand strategy, marketing, access and reimbursement, digital, and sales for various therapeutics (including retina)
Lots of updates! So what’s next for the company?
As we previously reported, Opthea is preparing to announce the pivotal phase 3 topline data readouts from its COAST study (in Q2 2025) and ShORe study (mid-2025).
The focus of those clinical trials: sozinibercept (OPT-302), an investigational candidate for wet AMD.
- Read up on their latest clinical findings.