June Almenoff, MD, PhD is an accomplished biopharma executive with more than 20 years of senior leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry.
She served as President and Chief Medical Officer of Furiex Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Actavis plc (now Allergan) for $1.2B. Furiex developed eluxadoline (Viberzi®), which was approved both in the United States and Europe. Prior to joining Furiex, Dr. Almenoff was at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for 12 years, where she held various positions of increasing responsibility. She was a Vice President in the Clinical Safety Organization, chaired a PhRMA-FDA working group, and worked in scientific licensing. Dr. Almenoff also led the development of pioneering systems for minimizing risk in drug development, which have been widely adopted by industry and regulators. She brings a unique ability to integrate R&D with commercial and business strategy: she has strong expertise spanning translational medicine, clinical stage and post approval R&D, business development and commercial strategy.
Currently, Dr. Almenoff is Chief Medical Officer at RedHill Biopharma Inc. (Nasdaq: RDHL), where she serves on the commercial leadership team. She is also on the investment advisory board of the Harrington Discovery Institute, a private venture philanthropy. She has served as an advisor to numerous biopharma and venture capital organizations, and as a consultant to biopharma hedge funds, advising on public company investments. She has served as a Board Director to numerous venture-backed and public biotech companies: currently, Brainstorm Therapeutics (BCLI: Nasdaq) and Tenax (TENX: Nasdaq) and InSoma (private). She previously served as a Board Director to Tigenix (TIG: Nasdaq, acquired by Takeda), Kurome (VC-backed oncology), RDD Pharma (Chair), and Furiex Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Actavis plc.).
Dr. Almenoff has deep experience in many therapeutic areas, and she has led - or contributed - to clinical and regulatory development strategy through the full development cycle (from pre-IND through Phase III & IV). She has also been a key contributor to several commercial launches. She has had significant experience interacting with the FDA and EU regulators, having led - or contributed - to numerous submissions and product approvals.
Dr. Almenoff received her BA cum laude from Smith College and graduated with AOA honors from the MD-PhD program at the Icahn (Mt. Sinai) School of Medicine. She completed post-graduate medical training at Stanford University Medical Center, and she served on the faculty of Duke University School of Medicine. She is an adjunct Professor at Duke, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP) and has authored ~60 publications.