Chutes and Ladders
Chutes and Ladders
Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of significant leadership hirings, firings and retirings across the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Darren Incorvaia or Zoey Becker and it will be featured here at the end of each week.
Sage CMO steps down amid pipeline struggles
Sage Therapeutics
Laura Gault
Laura Gault, M.D., Ph.D. (Sage Therapeutics)
Sage Chief Medical Officer Laura Gault, M.D., Ph.D., is stepping down to pursue a new opportunity effective March 21, the latest change for a company that has had a recent string of clinical failures. The neuro-focused firm scrapped an Alzheimer’s disease program and had Biogen cancel an essential tremor collaboration last fall after the assets failed to hit their trial endpoints. Sage followed those flops with a C-suite shake-up and layoffs for half of the R&D team, after which the clinical troubles continued with a failed Huntington’s disease trial. Gault joined Sage in November 2022 after leadership stints at AbbVie, Vertex and Alexion. Chief Scientific Officer Michael Quirk, Ph.D., will fill the CMO role in the interim. Release
Former NIH Director Collins retires from agency
National Institutes of Health
After a 32-year career at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., retired from the agency effective Feb. 28. Collins served as NIH director from 2009 to 2021, spanning three presidents: Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. After stepping down as director, he briefly served as Biden’s science advisor in 2022. He then returned to the NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute, where he had served as director from 1993 to 2008. There, Collins led the Human Genome Project, which successfully finished compiling a full human genome in 2003. Story
Rapport ropes in industry vet as CMO
Rapport Therapeutics
Accomplished neurology expert Jeffrey Sevigny, M.D., has chosen Rapport Therapeutics as his next landing spot. In the chief medical officer role, Sevigny will advance the company’s receptor-associated-protein-based precision medicine pipeline and its lead candidate RAP-219’s progression in focal epilepsy, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain and bipolar mania. The 15 years of experience under the new CMO’s belt span the gamut of drug development operations from discovery to regulatory approvals, and his newest digs at Rapport come after a six-year tenure at Prevail Therapeutics, where he led as CMO through an acquisition by Eli Lilly. Before that, the executive held roles at Biogen, Novartis and Merck as well as academic positions at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine and Columbia University. Release
> Former Gilead Sciences Chief Scientific Officer John McHutchison, M.D., is taking the helm at Tune Therapeutics as CEO after two years on the epigenome company’s board of directors. Release
> After its board of directors’ chairperson Morten Graugaard pivoted to the CEO seat earlier this year, Orbis Medicines appointed Pfizer’s former chief scientific officer Mikael Dolsten, M.D., Ph.D., to fill the role. Release
> Neumora’s head of R&D Robert Lenz, M.D., Ph.D., is hitting the exit to “pursue other interests” as the company works to revamp ongoing trials following a phase 3 fail. Story
> Rain Oncology cofounder Avanish Vellanki is succeeding interim chief Adam Craig, M.D., Ph.D., in the CEO spot at blood stem-cell-therapy-focused Garuda Therapeutics. Release
> Allergy drugmaker Stallergenes Greer is bringing in Andreas Amrein as its CEO upon the upcoming retirement of Michele Antonelli, which follows 10 years at the company. Release
> Mestag Therapeutics is preparing to bring its immune-targeting antibodies into the clinic with the addition of Regeneron vet Matthew Sleeman, Ph.D., as chief scientific officer. Release
> Precision medicine firm MBX Biosciences has found two new senior vice presidents in Chatan Charan, Ph.D., and Mark Hope, who will respectively oversee pharmaceutical development and CMC and regulatory and quality. Release
> BigHat Biosciences CEO Mark DePristo, Ph.D., is stepping down and passing the baton to his fellow cofounder Peyton Greenside, Ph.D. LinkedIn
Chutes and Ladders Sage Therapeutics National Institutes of Health (NIH) Rapport Therapeutics Tune Therapeutics Mikael Dolsten Neumora Therapeutics Garuda Therapeutics Stallergenes Greer MBX Biosciences BigHat Biosciences hiring executives Biotech