Occam Places CMO and President of R&D at Variant Bio

NEW YORK, Jan. 21, 2026 — Occam Global, a leading executive search and advisory firm to life science innovators, announced today the successful placement of Craig T. Basson, MD, PhD, as CMO and President of R&D at Variant Bio, a genomics-driven AI drug discovery company.

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Basson brings more than 25 years of leadership experience across academic medicine, global pharmaceutical development, and biotechnology. He is widely recognized for his expertise in cardiovascular and metabolic disease, human genetics, and translational science. Most recently, Basson served as CMO of Bitterroot Bio and, prior to that, as Co-CMO at Boston Pharmaceuticals, where he helped scale the company into a multi-program clinical-stage biotech and served as interim CEO. Earlier in his career, Basson spent a decade at Novartis, leading global cardiovascular and metabolic early development efforts and contributing to multiple landmark programs, including Entresto, Leqvio, and the CANTOS outcomes trial.

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Basson earned his MD and PhD from Yale University and completed medical training at Johns Hopkins University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He previously spent 14 years at Weill Cornell Medicine, where he led research on the genetic basis of cardiovascular disease.