A veteran Wall Street professional has taken over as head of investor relations and corporate development at biotechnology company Tevogen Bio Holdings, while two former analysts have taken up IR roles at Lonza and Onto Innovation.
Tapan Shah, who took up his new position last week, was most recently director of relationship management at Citigroup’s client organization, where he also served as a member of the executive office. Prior to that, he worked in Morgan Stanley’s asset management business focused on equity strategy and product development, and started his career in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs.
He now leads stakeholder communications as well as the M&A and capital-raising functions at the Nasdaq-listed immunotherapy firm.
‘Mr Shah’s extensive background in financial services, paired with his ability to forge trusted-adviser relationships, will steer our company through its upcoming stages of growth and play a crucial role as we venture into new areas of the healthcare ecosystem,’ says Dr Ryan Saadi, Tevogen Bio’s founder and CEO.
Elsewhere, US semiconductor company Onto Innovation has announced a replacement for outgoing head of IR Michael Sheaffer, who plans to retire from his role at the NYSE-listed firm in July.
Sidney Ho, who most recently served for 10 years as a senior analyst at Deutsche Bank, will take over as vice president of investor relations when Shaeffer steps down. He has more than 20 years’ combined experience on the sell side writing equity research covering the semiconductor, semiconductor capital equipment and IT hardware industries, with roles at Nomura Securities, Citi and Merrill Lynch.
Sheaffer joined Rudolph Technologies in 2017 as senior director of investor relations and continued that role for Onto Innovation following the merger of Rudolph Technologies and Nanometrics. He says: ‘It has been a great pleasure to finish my career at Onto Innovation where we created a new company supporting the semiconductor value chain while growing revenues threefold since I joined. Over the next few months, I am pleased to help Sidney transition into this exciting role.’
In Switzerland, pharmaceutical company Lonza Group has announced the appointment of Daniel Buchta as head of investor relations.
A sell-side analyst with more than a decade of experience covering chemicals and healthcare at Commerzbank, MainFirst Group, Vontobel and Zürcher Kantonalbank, Buchta takes the reins from Lyle Wheeler, who moved from Lonza to become CFO at fellow Swiss biotech company Bacthera earlier this year.
Buchta’s arrival coincides with that of new Lonza CEO Wolfgang Wienand, who joins the company this summer from Swiss company Siegfried. He replaces outgoing chairman and CEO Albert Baehny, who is set to retire later this year.
‘I am excited to start a new chapter in my career as head of investor relations at Lonza,’ Buchta writes on LinkedIn. ‘I am grateful for this opportunity and look forward to the upcoming challenges. In my view, Lonza is a great company and I hope to bring across this message to current and potential future investors.’
