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NEW YORK, April 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Gameto, a female-led biotech company developing therapies to improve the female reproductive journey, today announced the expansion of its executive team with the appointment of Teri Loxam as its first Chief Financial Officer. In this new role, Teri will oversee Gameto's financial function, as well as play a key role in overall company strategy. "Teri is a proven CFO and an impressive female leader, whose decades of experience will immediately add value to our company," said Dina Radenkovic, co-founder and CEO of Gameto. "Her depth of knowledge in capital markets and financing in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries comes at an exciting time for the company as we work on clinical development and go-to-market strategy for our lead program, Fertilo, to make the IVF process shorter, safer and more effective for women. Teri's personal passion for women's health is extremely important to us as we continue to grow." Teri joins Gameto with over 20 years of diverse experience in strategy, investor relations and finance across the pharmaceutical, biotech, and TMT industries. Prior to joining Gameto, Teri was Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer at Kira Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biotech company developing transformative therapies for people with complement-mediated diseases. There, she built financial and operational functions across the U.S. and China locations to get the company public-ready. Prior to Kira, Teri served as CFO of SQZ Biotechnologies, a novel cell therapy company developing treatments for cancer, infectious disease and other serious conditions, where she raised over $200M, including taking the company public in October 2020. Prior to joining SQZ, Teri held various positions at Merck, IMAX Corporation, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Teri is also a member of the board of directors and audit chair of Vaxcyte, Inc. and Cardiol Therapeutics, Inc. She has a B.S. in Biology from the University of Victoria, B.C. Canada and an MBA from the University of California, Irvine. "Gameto's highly innovative platform and dedication to improve and support women's health is impressive," said Teri Loxam, Chief Financial Officer of Gameto. "I am eager to work with a talented team of professionals who are passionate about transforming the traditional IVF processes and advancing developments for women." Teri's appointment is one of many new senior hires this year. Gameto recently appointed Jean-Pierre Gotteland as Head of Development to the management team. Prior to joining Gameto, Jean-Pierre was Chief Scientific Officer and Head of R&D at ObsEva SA, a clinical-stage biotech company developing innovative women's reproductive health therapeutics. There, he led the development and approval of linzagolix, for uterine fibroids, and brought to clinical trials nolasiban, for increasing live birth rate following IVF. Jean-Pierre also served as Chief Development Officer at PregLem SA where he led the development and EU approval of ulipristal acetate for uterine fibroids and infertility. Prior to joining PregLem, Jean-Pierre held various R&D positions at Serono, a world-leading pharmaceutical company before its acquisition by Merck KgA. Jean-Pierre will facilitate clinical development of Gameto's lead program, Fertilo. These new senior hires expand the multidisciplinary team of stem cell engineers, computational biologists, embryologists and physicians Gameto has brought together. About Gameto Based in New York and Madrid, Gameto is a biotechnology company using cell engineering to develop therapeutics for diseases of the female reproductive system. Gameto brings together an experienced scientific management team with vision and passion to develop a product offering that will support women throughout their reproductive journey. Gameto is currently working on its first program, Fertilo, a product for IVF and egg freezing, aiming to make the process shorter, safer and more effective. The preclinical studies for Fertilo found that it can increase egg yield per cycle and maturation for both conventional and reduced stimulation cycle. Gameto is currently conducting preclinical studies with partners Inception Fertility, Spring Fertility, Extend Fertility, RMA, Pozitivf, Ovation Fertility, ReproART, Clinica Tambre, and Hospital Ruber Internacional, Eugin Group. Gameto is led by physician-turned-entrepreneur Dina Radenkovic as CEO and serial entrepreneur and leader in the fertility space Martin Varsavsky as Chairman. For more information, go to gametogen.com or follow us on Twitter and Instagram @gametogen.

While big pharmas regularly undergo turnover, this quarter’s layoff list has a particularly large pharma presence. The biotech industry has been holding its breath, hoping that 2024 would bring some reprieve from 2023’s brutal bear market. But market recovery is a slow process, and the number of layoffs reported this quarter reflects that sentiment, with 57 layoff rounds reported for the first three months—the exact number reported during the same period last year.    Both these totals are nearly double 2022’s first quarter total of 30 layoff rounds reported.  https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/17346360/ While it's hard to fully understand the human impact of the layoffs, at least 2,398 people lost their jobs from the 25 companies reporting numbers of employees affected this quarter, according to data from the Fierce Biotech Layoff Tracker. The remaining companies either reported layoffs as a percentage of the total workforce or didn’t share how many staff members would be laid off. Of the 31 times that companies did provide a percentage of staff eliminated, 34% was the mean reduction size.   Breaking up the reported layoffs by month, January saw the highest number of workforce reductions, totaling 24 different rounds compared to 16 in February and 17 in March.    https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/17331518/ Many of the biotechs laying off staff cited the current market environment, with Sumitomo Pharma dubbing the conditions a “severe business environment.” Other cuts follow clinical trial flops, such as Synlogic’s 90% workforce cull and planned closure after a pivotal phase 3 study of its lead phenylketonuria drug was found to be unlikely to succeed on the primary endpoint.   A few other biotechs had to close shop entirely. In late February, Swiss company ObsEva said all employees would be laid off as operations were wound down. Things had been grim for the biotech since July 2022, when its stock plummeted after the FDA said its highly touted uterine fibroid candidate linzagolix wasn’t fit for an on-time approval. Meanwhile, China-based LianBio set out plans for a prolonged dissolution expected closer to 2027, with half of the biotech’s staff to lose their jobs by the end of March.  https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/17330903/ While Big Pharmas regularly undergo turnover, this quarter’s layoff list has a particularly large presence from these larger companies. Names like Bayer, Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK, Takeda, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Roche and Pfizer all appear on 2024’s tracker—often more than once. Companies like Pfizer, Moderna and J&J have been forced to pivot after previously investing heavily in COVID-19, for which demand has greatly declined over the past year. Pfizer’s global cost-cutting campaign has left hundreds of unemployed people in its wake, while J&J shuttered a nearly 200,000-square-foot R&D outpost in California less than 18 months after it opened. https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/17331305/ Other Big Pharmas have stoked the fires of the M&A market, snapping up biotechs and their pipelines, but often discarding the majority of the company’s team.       This phenomenon can be seen as recently as March 26, when Bristol Myers Squibb announced that 252 Mirati workers would be heading out two months after closing a multibillion-dollar acquisition of the oncology biotech. Just days before, on March 22, GSK confirmed that an undisclosed number of Bellus Health employees would lose their jobs after the pharma paid $2 billion to buy the Canadian company last summer. https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/17331425/ This extends beyond just Big Pharma acquisitions, too. Last week, clinical-stage Avalo Therapeutics agreed to pay $22 million to acquire AlmataBio and the biotech's anti-IL-1β monoclonal antibody AVTX-009. None of Almata's workers will be retained under the new owner.   Meanwhile, biotechs like Aurinia Pharmaceuticals have searched for a buyer, but, after failing to secure one, reach the same conclusion—layoffs are required to survive.   The data presented here is likely a gross underestimate of the actual layoffs occurring across the industry. We’ve received several layoff tips that haven’t yet been corroborated while numerous reductions in force at private companies are able to fly under the radar. As always, if you know of a layoff occurring at a biotech, please reach out to the Fierce Biotech editorial team and let us know.