Dimension Therapeutics appoints Annalisa Jenkins as chief executive

Dimension Therapeutics, a US gene therapy company focused on rare diseases, has appointed Annalisa Jenkins as chief executive, who succeeds interim chief executive Thomas Beck.

Dr Jenkins has more than 20 years’ experience in working through the R&D process to regulatory approval and delivering products into health care systems globally. She comes from Merck Serono (MRK: DE), where she served as executive vice president, head of global R&D, and also led global medical affairs and quality. Prior to this, Dr Jenkins held roles of increasing responsibility at Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY), where she contributed to the progression and approval of products such as Sprycel (dasatinib) and Abilify (aripiprazole), and was key in the acquisition of Medarex and partnerships with Pfizer and Astra Zeneca.

Ben Auspitz, chairman and co-founder of Dimension and partner at Fidelity Biosciences, said: “Annalisa is a passionate and energetic leader with a proven track record of successfully translating exciting science from the bench to the bedside. Over the past year, under Tom’s leadership, Dimension has made important progress, including our recent hemophilia A partnership with Bayer, which is the largest single target adeno-associated virus gene therapy collaboration to date, and the addition of OrbiMed to our investor syndicate. With that solid foundation upon which to build, we look forward to Annalisa utilizing her deep experience in R&D, medical affairs and organizational leadership to rapidly advance Dimension’s goal of bringing novel gene therapies to patients with rare diseases.”