Cristcot names Rayna Herman to lead HCA commercial division

Cristcot, an Austin, Texas-based clinical-stage pharmaceutical company focused on gastrointestinal diseases, has appointed Rayna Sethi Herman as President of its hydrocortisone acetate (HCA) commercial division. Herman will lead launch readiness and commercial strategy for the company's investigational next-generation HCA (ngHCA) 90 mg suppository, which is currently under review by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Jennifer J. Davagian, Cristcot's founder and chief executive, said Herman's "proven track record building and scaling commercial operations" made her the right hire at this stage of the company's development. If approved, Cristcot is positioning ngHCA as the first and only FDA-approved HCA suppository — a claim that, if borne out at approval, would represent a meaningful commercial differentiator in the rectal corticosteroid segment.

The appointment

Herman joins from Shorla Oncology, a speciality pharma company where she served as Chief Commercial Officer and built the US commercial infrastructure from the ground up. In that role she launched three branded products and one generic, managing vendor selection, specialty distribution agreements, and internal versus outsourced capability decisions. Before Shorla, she held a senior commercialisation role at EVERSANA, a contract commercialisation services firm that partners with emerging pharmaceutical companies on end-to-end launch execution. Her career began in sales and marketing at Merck. She holds an MBA from Washington University's Olin Business School and a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Indiana University.

The hire signals that Cristcot is moving into active pre-launch mode. Building a dedicated commercial organisation ahead of an FDA decision is standard practice for companies seeking to maximise the speed-to-revenue window post-approval, and Herman's background at EVERSANA — whose model is specifically designed for smaller companies without established commercial infrastructure — suggests Cristcot may blend in-house capability with outsourced execution.

Market context

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic autoimmune condition affecting the large intestine for which there is no cure. Cristcot notes that more than 80% of UC patients experience at least two flares annually, many of whom cycle through therapies as disease activity fluctuates. Rectally administered corticosteroids are an established component of induction and step-down therapy in UC, particularly for proctitis and left-sided disease, and are commonly used alongside systemic biologics or oral small molecules.

The broader UC market is crowded at the biologic and advanced therapy end — Pfizer's Xeljanz, AbbVie's Skyrizi, and Takeda's Entyvio among others compete for moderate-to-severe patients — but the rectal corticosteroid segment is comparatively less innovated. Cristcot's positioning of ngHCA as a patient-compliance-friendly, low-systemic-exposure option targets a formulation gap rather than a mechanism gap, which typically carries a lower regulatory burden but also a more targeted commercial ceiling. The Sephure applicator, which is already FDA-cleared, is presented as part of the differentiation story.

Cristcot's broader pipeline includes programmes in acute pancreatitis, haemorrhoid disease, and other inflammatory gastrointestinal indications, though none of these appear to be at a comparable stage of development to ngHCA.