New chair, management changes at Ocular 

Ocular Therapeutix Inc. (NASDAQ:OCUL) announced a $325 million private placement and several changes to its leadership, including the appointment of Pravin Dugel to succeed Charles Warden as chairman. Dugel was president of Iveric Bio Inc.; Warden will become lead independent director at Ocular. Other appointments include that of Jeffrey Heier, formerly co-president and medical director of Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston, as CSO. Ocular’s current CSO, Peter Jarrett, will transition to chief technical officer. Peter Kaiser, who was Ocular’s chief medical adviser, will become medical director; and Sanjay Nayak, who was founder and fund manager of biotech investment fund Sentiv Capital, will take on the role of chief strategy officer.

Ansa Biotechnologies Inc. named Jason Gammack as CEO, succeeding Dan Lin-Arlow who will become CSO. Gammack was co-founder and CEO of Resolve Biosciences GmbH. Ansa uses enzyme-cleavable linkers instead of blocking groups to generate long DNA molecules...