Altus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ALTU)

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Altus director Root resigns amid shakeup

The leadership transition at Altus Pharmaceuticals Inc. saw another departure last week, as venture capitalist Jonathan Root announced his resignation from the drug maker’s board of directors.

Root’s resignation was effective April. The company did not cite a reason for his departure.

Root’s departure comes several weeks after the Cambridge, Mass.-based company announced 107 job cuts and a flurry of senior-level executive departures. The reorganization is primarily linked to Altus’ decision to spike its Trizytek drug efforts due to cash problems and focus instead on its growth-hormone research.

Root, a medical doctor and managing partner with U.S. Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif., had been an Altus board member since 2001.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Florida College of Medicine, Root spent 10 years in clinical practice and worked as an assistant professor of neurology and director of neurology-neurosurgery special care at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in New York City.