After two years as Gossamer Bio’s chief scientist, Luisa Salter-Cid, Ph.D. has landed at Flagship Pioneering, where she will spearhead the development of new medicines based on technology from the firm’s portfolio companies.
She joins fellow Bristol Myers Squibb veteran Paul Biondi, formerly the Big Pharma’s dealmaker and now an executive partner at Flagship and president of its Pioneering Medicines division. As chief scientific officer of Pioneering Medicines, Salter-Cid will build the unit’s research capabilities and take the lead on new programs that go beyond what the individual companies are doing on their own.
Under Biondi, the unit will also seek more partnerships with biopharma firms with the “aim of extending the partners’ access to multiple novel scientific platforms unique to the Flagship ecosystem of companies.”
“With her extensive scientific expertise across both therapeutic areas and modalities, Luisa will be essential in shaping our portfolio, advancing our programs to the clinic, and achieving our mission to benefit more patients, sooner. I am delighted to welcome her to our expanding Pioneering Medicines’ team,” Biondi said in a statement on Tuesday.
Salter-Cid joined Gossamer Bio in September 2018 after a 13-year tenure at Bristol Myers, where she moved up the ranks, eventually becoming vice president and head of immunology, small molecule immuno-oncology and genomics discovery. In that role, she led teams focused on target validation and development of biologic and small-molecule drugs for the treatment of autoimmune disease and cancer.
She was also part of the early development, strategy and licensing teams for immunology and immuno-oncology and served as the scientific lead on several of BMS’ acquisitions and licensing deals.
Her time at BMS overlapped with that of Biondi, who held various roles in the drugmaker’s R&D organization, including senior vice president of strategy and business development. He left that post in 2019 amid BMS’ $74 billion Celgene buyout and joined Flagship to help lead Pioneering Medicines.
At Gossamer, she worked alongside a different BMS alum, then-CEO Sheila Gujrathi, M.D. Salter-Cid oversaw the company’s pipeline of programs targeting a range of disease areas, including immunology, autoimmune disease, gastrointestinal disorders and immuno-oncology. She left the company in April this year, after its DP2 inhibitor, GB001, failed phase 2 studies in asthma and chronic rhinosinusitis.
Faheem Hasnain, the founding CEO of Gossamer, took the helm back from Gujrathi after the twin failures. The company initially planned to press ahead with a phase 3 study for GB001 in severe asthma but said in February this year that it would need a partner to pursue a “viable clinical development path” for the program or its backup molecule.