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
The Food and Drug Administration’s top scientist Namandjé Bumpus will assume the role of principal deputy commissioner when longtime agency leader Janet Woodcock retires from that role in early 2024, according to an announcement Thursday.
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