Seasoned executives to drive startups in the next phase

Giancarlo Rizzoli has taken over a new role as 4D Lifetec, succeeding Arne Faisst, the company’s co-founder, major shareholder, and chairman of the board and CEO since launching in 2014. Rizzoli has been with 4D Lifetec as a shareholder and business development manager from the very beginning. He has proven experience in the diagnostic market and international sales management and thus brings with him all the prerequisites to introduce the company’s products to the markets and to build up and anchor the company 4D Lifetec in the US. In his new role, he will support the company’s growth.

Zippsafe welcomes new CFO
Zippsafe, a pioneer in the field of smart soft locker solutions providing smart and highly space-saving solutions for employees' locker rooms in healthcare and manufacturing, has appointed Osman Mohamed to the position of CFO. Mohamed started his professional career in corporate finance at KPMG and worked at Theo Müller Group in Luxembourg and the Bell Food Group. Over the past years, he held various positions as strategic support to the CEO in France, to Head of Supply Chain Controlling at Hügli in Germany, Country CFO at Eisberg in Austria, and most recently as Head of Business Development & CEO Office at Hilcona in Liechtenstein. He also brings entrepreneurial experience as the founder of an eCommerce start-up that achieved an impressive turnover of 1.8 million euros in just two years. In 2007, the company was sold to a large  Dutch trading group. In his new role at Zippsafe, he will work on smart soft storage solutions. 

Distalmotion appoints CFO and COO 
The recent closing of a USD 90 million Series E financing round came after Distalmotion’s successful initial commercial roll-out of Dexter in select European markets, where the system has now been established in routine clinical use and is making an impact for patients, surgeons and OR teams daily. To fuel its growth, the company has appointed three new members to its senior leadership team. Frank Schulkes, the new CFO has 25 years of experience in developing and financing public medical device companies, assumes the role of Chief Financial Officer.  Larry Carrier, joined the company as VP Regulatory Affairs and Quality. He brings over three decades of experience in Regulatory and Quality Affairs in the medical device sector to the table. Larry’s experience will be invaluable to Distalmotion, particularly in the FDA certification process that the company is currently preparing for. Matt Howson has joined the company as Chief Operations Officer. Matt has a unique track-record of developing and managing global supply chains and operations in medical device companies of various sizes and different phases of their corporate development. Before his role as VP of Global Operations & Supply Chain for ConvaTec’s Infusion Care business, he spent 16 years at Johnson & Johnson. 

Anjarium hires ex-Novartis as CTO
Former CTO at Novartis Otmane Boussif, has assumed a new role at Anjarium Biosciences, a biotech company focused on creating and delivering a new class of non-viral gene therapies. Otmane brings over 25 years of experience in shaping and leading biopharmaceutical technology development, bioprocessing, manufacturing, and regulatory requirements covering a range of biological modalities, with a strong focus on advanced Cell and Gene Therapies. Otmane joins Anjarium from the clinical-stage biotech company Sensorion, where he was CTO. Before that, he spent six years at Novartis in various senior roles, including Global Head of Cell & Gene Therapy Technical Development and Global Head of Early Phase Development. In these roles, Otmane established a dedicated unit to oversee all Cell and Gene Therapy modalities and was involved in numerous Investigational New Drug programs. Before Novartis, he held roles at Sanofi and EMD Serono.

DiNaQor welcomes two executives
DiNAQor, a genetic medicine platform company, has appointed two veteran biotechnology executives, Chris Rusconi as Chief Development Officer and Steven Zelenkofske as Chief Strategy Officer. Rusconi Rusconi, an expert in leveraging platform science to create product pipelines, brings to his new role more than 20 years of biotech executive experience with privately held and publicly traded companies and extensive global pharmaceutical development and regulatory experience. He comes to DiNAQOR from the PKD Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to finding treatments and a cure for polycystic kidney disease (PKD). He also served as the Chief Scientific Officer at Vitrisa Therapeutics, the founding CEO of Ribometrix, and was a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Regado Biosciences. Prior to Regado, he served as Director of Research for the Program in Combinatorial Therapeutics and as an Assistant Research Professor of Surgery at Duke University Medical Center.

Zelenkofske, who will continue to serve on DiNAQOR's board of directors, assumes the role of Chief Strategy Officer with more than 20 years of biopharmaceutical, medical device, and gene therapy industry experience and more than a decade of cardiovascular academic and clinical experience. He has been responsible for multiple NDA filings and approvals throughout his career and has held leadership positions at SwanBio Therapeutics, Achillion Pharmaceuticals, uniQure, Regado Biosciences, AstraZeneca, Sanofi-Aventis, and Boston Scientific. His work has spanned numerous therapeutic areas, including neurology, immunology, haematology, cardiovascular, metabolic diseases, diabetes, and nephrology.

(Press release/RAN)