Dr. June Almenoff joined the Board in 2021. Dr. Almenoff is an accomplished biopharma executive with over 20 years of senior leadership experience. She served as President and Chief Medical Officer of Furiex Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Actavis plc (now AbbVie) for $1.2B. Furiex developed eluxadoline (Viberzi®), which is approved in both 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 the area of 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. Dr. Almenoff has led or contributed to numerous regulatory submissions and product approvals. She is currently Chief Medical Officer of RedHill Biopharma (Nasdaq: RDHL). She also serves on the investment advisory board of the Harrington Discovery Institute, is a Director on the boards of Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics (Nasdaq: BCLI) and Avalo Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVTX) and is a Director-Advisor of inSoma Bio. She previously served as a member of the board of directors of Tigenix NV (formerly Nasdaq: TIG), OHR Pharmaceutical Inc. (formerly Nasdaq: OHRP), Kurome Therapeutics, Inc., and as executive chair of the board of directors of RDD Pharma, Ltd. (now 9 Meters Biopharma, Inc.). Dr. Almenoff has strong expertise in translational medicine, clinical development, commercial strategy, and business development, and has previously advised biotech boards and management in these areas.
Dr. Almenoff received her B.A. cum laude from Smith College and graduated with AOA honors from the M.D.-Ph.D. program at the Icahn (Mt. Sinai) School of Medicine. She completed post-graduate medical training at Stanford University Medical Center and 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 close to 60 publications.
