Christine Bellon.

FORMA Therapeutics has hired Christine Bellon as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary, the company announced earlier this week. She comes to the biotech startup from Relay Therapeutics of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she was senior VP of legal affairs and, with a Ph.D., contributed to the scientific strategy of the organization.

In a company statement, Bellon said she is “thrilled” to join FORMA at this stage of its growth and development.

“FORMA's drug discovery engine and network of collaborators have already demonstrated the capability to produce a broad and robust pipeline, and I am eager to contribute to this effort,” she said.

FORMA, based in Watertown, Massachusetts, was founded in 2007 by a group of scientists from the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The company develops and discovers drugs in oncology and other genetically driven therapeutic areas. In August, it reached a $195 million deal with Celgene Corp. for the development of drugs for inflammation, immunology and neurogenerative diseases, its third collaboration with the company in four years, according to Xconomy.com.

Before joining Relay in July 2016, Bellon held numerous in-house stints, including at Wyeth, Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc., Hydra Biosciences and Blueprint Medicines. She began her legal career at Fish & Richardson, where she was an associate for more than six years.

Bellon holds undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University and Columbia Law School, respectively, as well as a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from MIT.

A company spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Bellon's hire, namely whether she is the first person to hold the top lawyer position at FORMA.