EPIX Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Seasoned industry executive with decades of success in drug discovery, development, regulatory approvals and commercialization will lead Nereid's work to advance multiple programs towards the clinic BOSTON, Nov. 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Nereid Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that is discovering new disease treatments by applying pioneering research and technologies to biomolecular condensates, announced today that Michael Kauffman, M.D., Ph.D., has joined the company as President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Kauffman will also join the Nereid Board of Directors. Spiros Liras, Ph.D., a venture partner at Apple Tree Partners (ATP) who has been acting CEO of Nereid since the company was created by ATP in late 2020, will continue to serve on Nereid's Board of Directors and the company's Scientific Advisory Board. "We are delighted to welcome Michael to Nereid at a pivotal juncture when, having demonstrated translatability of chemical matter that modulates liquid-liquid phase separation behavior to disease-relevant cellular phenotypes, we are now rapidly progressing several programs addressing high-value targets in cancer and other diseases," Dr. Liras said. "Michael brings to Nereid the right energy at the right time. He combines proven experience in leading teams delivering lifesaving therapies from the laboratory to patients, deep expertise in all aspects of industry, and a drive and passion to apply Nereid's groundbreaking science to achieve significant medical breakthroughs." Over a career in biopharmaceuticals spanning nearly three decades, Dr. Kauffman has led organizations through the discovery, development, and commercialization of novel drugs, including three FDA- and EMA-approved anti-cancer drugs: Velcade®, Kyprolis®, and Xpovio®. Most recently, he spent more than a decade as CEO and co-founder of Karyopharm. Prior to that, he was Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and then a clinical consultant for the Kyprolis® approval at Onyx Pharmaceuticals (subsequently acquired by Amgen). He has also served as a board member and then CMO of Proteolix, Operating Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and CEO of Epix Pharmaceuticals and Predix Pharmaceuticals (which was acquired by Epix). Earlier in his career, he held leadership positions at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Biogen. He currently chairs the boards of BiVictriX Therapeutics and Incendia Therapeutics and serves on the Boards of Verastem Oncology, Kezar Life Sciences, and Adicet Bio. He is licensed to practice medicine in Massachusetts and completed his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at Johns Hopkins, followed by residency at Beth Israel Hospital and fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, both affiliated with Harvard Medical School. "This is a transformational time to join Nereid as we enter a new phase of development and advance multiple programs in oncology and neurodegeneration towards the clinic," Dr. Kauffman said. "I look forward to working alongside this highly talented team who are pioneers in the novel, exciting and highly physiologically relevant field of biomolecular condensate science, which is the core of Nereid's approach to drug discovery and development." Dr. Kauffman and other members of the Nereid leadership team will be onsite for meetings at the 42nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference taking place January 8-11, 2024, in San Francisco, CA. About Nereid Therapeutics Nereid Therapeutics, an ATP company, is discovering new disease treatments using proprietary state-of-the-art technologies for generating, visualizing, and measuring liquid-liquid phase separation and the resulting biomolecular condensates. Based on groundbreaking discoveries and technologies pioneered by 2023 Breakthrough Prize winner Cliff Brangwynne, Ph.D., Nereid applies leading expertise in soft matter physics and cell biology to pioneer completely new ways to fight intractable diseases. For more information, visit nereidtx.com. SOURCE Nereid Therapeutics

Cuts at Medtronic follow promises made in February to pursue “aggressive cost reductions” in the face of larger economic headwinds and inflation as well as the impact of fluctuating foreign currencies. After seeing flagging sales across its segments during the past three quarters, Medtronic has begun moving forward with layoffs that will span its international businesses. With about 100,000 employees worldwide, the process of notifying people whether they still have a job could take months, the company said in a statement to Fierce Medtech. “These decisions are never easy, and we’re taking great care to treat all impacted employees with dignity and respect,” the company said. “Medtronic will follow fair, consistent processes and provide comprehensive transitional resources to impacted employees during this time.” The final impacts and overall timelines will vary “by team, region and country,” per an email sent to staff by CEO Geoff Martha as reported Tuesday by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Medtronic has not confirmed the total number of employees that will be let go.  The cuts follow promises Medtronic made in February to pursue “aggressive cost reductions” in the face of larger economic headwinds and inflation as well as the impact of fluctuating foreign currencies, both of which contributed to reported year-over-year declines in revenues for the company’s diabetes and surgical divisions. Last year also saw dips in cardiovascular and neuroscience sales. During its most recent earnings call for the third quarter of its 2023 fiscal year, Medtronic Chief Financial Officer Karen Parkhill said significant cost reductions that had begun in the months before would continue into the company’s fourth quarter, which wraps up at the end of April. The company has also looked to limit travel and slow hiring, and has offered employees voluntary early retirement as a way to cut costs, according to Martha’s email. At the same time, Medtronic has looked to unload some of its business units entirely.  Through a joint venture with the dialysis giant DaVita Kidney Care, Medtronic spun out its renal services division earlier this month under the new banner Mozarc Medical. Both companies provided initial investments of $200 million for its launch and are splitting ownership of the newly created company. The move was largely a “lift and shift” of Medtronic’s previous kidney care business, including about 1,700 employees worldwide. Meanwhile, Medtronic has been courting buyers of its patient monitoring and respiratory care outfits—including its catalog of hospital ventilators that saw widespread demand during the first phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Potential suitors have included ICU Medical, GE HealthCare and Siemens, according to reports. The company also quietly combined its surgical robotics and devices units in an internal reorganization that took place earlier this year. The newly christened $6 billion surgical operating unit sits within Medtronic’s larger medical surgical portfolio.  More recently, Medtronic disclosed plans to close down a Silicon Valley-area facility obtained through its 2019 acquisition of the heart ablation devicemaker Epix Therapeutics, resulting in layoffs of 59 employees. The company said it had made its plans known to move the manufacturing of Epix’s DiamondTemp catheter from Sunnyvale, California, to Ireland as early as October 2020.

“Medtronic operates in a highly competitive environment and is continually taking actions to drive effectiveness and efficiencies to drive growth and position us for the future. As we assess our business, we need to make longer-term structural changes to ensure the sustainability of our organization,” the company said in a statement to Fierce Medtech. In the wake of Chief Financial Officer Karen Parkhill’s February announcement that Medtronic would be delivering “significant expense reductions” in the final months of its 2023 fiscal year—which closes out at the end of April—the medtech giant is closing a California facility, resulting in a round of layoffs. The facility in question is located in Silicon Valley's Sunnyvale. It came under Medtronic’s purview with the 2019 acquisition of cardiac ablation tech maker Epix Therapeutics. A company representative told Fierce Medtech that Medtronic had begun internally communicating its plans to move manufacturing of Epix’s DiamondTemp catheter from Sunnyvale to Galway, Ireland, in October 2020, with the California facility’s closure long planned for this year. According to a notice Medtronic filed with the state’s Employment Development Department (EDD) in accordance with the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification act—and which was shared with Fierce Medtech by the EDD—the closure will result in layoffs of 59 employees. The layoffs are expected to begin "in or about April 2023" and will continue through the end of September, per the notice, which was dated March 29 and received by the EDD last week. The affected employees comprise all of the workers at the Sunnyvale facility, and they were notified of the impending reductions during two in-person town hall meetings at the end of October 2022, Medtronic wrote in the notice. “Medtronic operates in a highly competitive environment and is continually taking actions to drive effectiveness and efficiencies to drive growth and position us for the future. As we assess our business, we need to make longer-term structural changes to ensure the sustainability of our organization,” the company said in a statement sent to Fierce Medtech. “We previously announced plans to close this facility, and after careful analysis and consideration we have made the necessary decision to close the site in June 2023, therefore eliminating some positions.” The statement continued, “We recognize the work, dedication and commitment of our Medtronic team. We are providing employee assistance and will work to retain and redeploy affected employees to other parts of the company, wherever possible.” Parkhill’s warning of “significant” cost-cutting came as Medtronic saw its slipping sales finally level out in the third quarter of its fiscal year. After registering year-over-year revenue drops of 8% and 3% in the first two quarters, respectively, the company’s revenues almost broke even in the third quarter, falling less than half a percent from the same period the previous year. Meanwhile, the devicemaker has plowed ahead in slimming down its far-flung business. Its previously announced plan to carve off its renal care solutions business and launch a standalone kidney tech company in partnership with DaVita resulted in the unveiling of Mozarc Medical last week. Also on the chopping block are the company’s patient monitoring and respiratory interventions businesses, which have seen their sales take a major hit as demand for ventilators wanes in tandem with dropping COVID-19 hospitalizations. Medtronic originally said the units would spin out into yet another standalone company, but several of its fellow medtech giants—including GE HealthCare and ICU Medical—have reportedly shown interest in recent months in acquiring them instead. All three of those business units came from Medtronic’s medical surgical portfolio. With their planned departures, all that remains in the portfolio are the company’s GI and surgical businesses—the latter of which was the target of another, smaller-scale slimdown earlier this year as Medtronic combined its surgical robotics and surgical innovations operating units into a single segment.