San Diego, California-based Cidara Therapeutics has appointed Jessica Oien as general counsel and secretary.
Oien was previously vice president for compliance at Otonomy, where she developed and oversaw the commercial compliance program and was the legal lead for the commercial business. She has served in similar roles at Pernix Therapeutics, Somaxon Pharmaceuticals and Verus Pharmaceuticals. Oien has provided legal consulting services for early-stage biotech companies including legal support for collaborations, in addition to research and development programs.
She has also served as senior director for legal affairs at Elan Corporation, and began her legal career at law firms including Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison and Millbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy.
Cidara is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing new anti-infectives.
The firm has also appointed James Levine as CFO. Before joining Cidara, Levine held senior executive and board roles at biotechnology companies Sapphire Energy and Verenium Corporation, both of which were focused on the development, manufacture and sale of products for the human and animal nutrition markets. He is a former managing director in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs.
The appointments of Oien and Levine follow the departure in August of Matthew Onaitis, who was both CFO and general counsel at Cidara, to join Mainstay Medical International as CFO.
‘We are extremely pleased to welcome Jamie and Jessica to our executive management team,’ says Cidara president and CEO Jeffrey Stein in a statement. ‘They both have deep, highly relevant experience and distinguished leadership track records in the biotech industry, all of which will be extremely valuable to Cidara as we advance the rezafungin phase 3 program and expand our Cloudbreak immunotherapy platform.’
Ben Maiden
Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...
