Therapy Areas: AIDS & HIV
Terns Pharmaceuticals Names Sundaram as CEO, Vignola as CFO
10 August 2020 - - US-based biopharmaceutical company Terns Pharmaceuticals, Inc has named Senthil Sundaram as chief executive officer and member of the board of directors and Mark Vignola, Ph.D. as chief financial officer, the company said.

In addition, Erin Quirk, M.D., who joined Terns in January 2019 as Chief Medical Officer, will become president of Terns, in addition to her role as Chief Medical officer.

Weidong Zhong, Ph.D., who has served as CEO of Terns since the company was founded, will now serve as chief scientific officer and chairman of the board of directors.

Sundaram brings to Terns over 20 years of strategy and financial experience in the life sciences industry. Prior to joining Terns, Sundaram was the chief financial officer of Nightstar Therapeutics plc, a clinical-stage gene therapy company, until it was acquired by Biogen in 2019.

While at Nightstar, Sundaram led a number of private and public equity offerings, including its initial public offering, and a variety of business development efforts including the M and A process that resulted in the acquisition by Biogen.

Prior to Nightstar, Sundaram served in a variety of positions at Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc., including most recently as its vice president and Head of Business Development.

Prior to joining Intercept, Sundaram spent 13 years in the healthcare investment banking groups at Lehman Brothers/Barclays, Citigroup, and Lazard. Sundaram earned a B.S. in Computer Engineering and a B.A. in Economics from Brown University.

Prior to joining Terns as its CFO, Mark Vignola, Ph.D. was most recently the chief financial officer of Applied Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company.

While at Applied Therapeutics, Dr. Vignola led the company's initial public offering, private placement, and follow-on offering.

Prior to joining Applied Therapeutics, Dr. Vignola was Head of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Intercept Pharmaceuticals, during which time he was a top ranked healthcare executive in the 2019 Institutional Investor All-America Executive Team survey.

Prior to joining Intercept in 2015, he was a member of the biotechnology equity research team at Needham and company. Dr. Vignola earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology from Duke University and B.S. in Biology from Boston College.

Erin Quirk, M.D., is the president and Chief Medical officer of Terns Pharmaceuticals. During her 15-year pharmaceutical industry career, she has worked on dozens of clinical-stage drug and vaccine projects and has personally contributed to the development of 14 approved drug products to date, including initial marketing applications for five novel fixed-dose combinations.

Prior to joining Terns in 2019, Dr. Quirk was vice president of Clinical Research at Gilead Sciences, where she oversaw clinical development activities for investigational HIV treatments, as well as the development strategy and post-marketing studies for the company's HIV portfolio.

Prior to joining Gilead, Dr. Quirk was director of Clinical Research at Merck Research Laboratories, where she advanced clinical trials for HIV vaccines and small molecules for hepatitis C virus infection.

Dr. Quirk holds a bachelor's degree from Drew University and an M.D. from the University of Colorado. She completed training in internal medicine and infectious diseases at Washington University in St. Louis where she was a faculty member prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry.

Weidong Zhong, Ph.D. is the co-founder, chief scientific officer, and chairman of the board of Terns Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Zhong is a veteran who brings 25 years of experience and a proven track record in discovery and development of successful drug candidates.

During his career, he has played critical roles in advancing over 20 small molecule and biologic drug candidates into the clinic.

Prior to founding Terns Pharmaceuticals in 2017, Dr. Zhong served as Global Head of Antiviral Research at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.

At Novartis, he oversaw drug discovery activities spanning multiple viral disease areas and established a strong pipeline of both small molecules and biologics.

Prior to Novartis, he served at Gilead Sciences where he led discovery and early stage research projects to combat significant viral pathogens (HCV and HBV) and liver disease.

Early in his career, Dr. Zhong held positions of increasing responsibility at Ribapharm, ICN Pharmaceuticals, Schering-Plough Research Institute, and SmithKline Beecham. Dr. Zhong received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and conducted postdoctoral research at University of California, San Francisco.

Terns Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing best-in-class single-agent and combination therapies to treat liver disease including a pipeline of orally administered drug candidates for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.
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