The bellwether biotech Biogen has wooed a top investigator from Pfizer to take over as head of R&D. The company reported this morning that Michael Ehlers, who had been running the neuroscience and pain research operations at Pfizer, is stepping into the role of executive vice president, R&D.
Ehlers, a former Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Duke, had specialized in neuronal organelles and the trafficking of neurotransmitter receptors.
His background in the Cambridge/Boston hub working for Pfizer should prove to be a nice fit with Biogen, which has carved out an ambitious set of leading–and notably risky–programs on Alzheimer’s and other tough diseases.
Biogen’s former R&D chief, Doug Williams, left last summer to run a biotech startup. And Ehlers is benefiting once again from the migration of senior biotech execs into startup roles. He was promoted at Pfizer close to a year ago after José-Carlos Gutiérrez-Ramos left his prominent job as head of BioTherapeutics R&D in Cambridge, MA, to take the reins at Synlogic.
Just last fall Biogen underwent a wrenching reorganization, laying off 850 staffers and narrowing its R&D focus after the numbers on its MS operations disappointed Wall Street. But it circled the wagons in Alzheimer’s, focusing on aducanumab, a Phase III beta-amyloid antibody that has produced mixed but encouraging early-stage data.
Biogen is also collaborating with Isis Pharmaceuticals ($ISIS) on spinal muscular atrophy, a next-gen MS drug in midstage development, a Phase III program for inflammatory bowel disease and a late-stage treatment for trigeminal neuralgia, a rare disease.
“Biogen is a recognized leader in applying the highest quality science to critical health issues in neurodegenerative and rare diseases,” said Ehlers.
By John Carroll
Source: Fierce Biotech
CureVac and the University of Texas’s MD Anderson Cancer Center have announced a co-development and licensing agreement to develop novel messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based cancer vaccines. The strategic collaboration will focus on the development of differentiated cancer vaccine candidates in selected haematological and solid tumour indications with high unmet medical needs.
FUJIFILM Corporation is planning to invest $1.2 billion to expand the planned FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies manufacturing facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina, US. This news follows the organisation’s announcement of a $2 billion investment in the facility in March 2021. This additional financial boost totals the investment to over $3.2 billion, FUJIFILM confirmed.
Sanofi’s global restructuring and downsizing is now fully underway, with layoffs stretching to the company’s Belgian offices. Belgian newspaper De Tijd reports that 67 employees have been laid off at a site in Ghent and 32 jobs are on the chopping block at Sanofi’s Belgium HQ in Diegem.
