After days of rumors that Dr. Ron Farkas, a vocal FDA critic of Sarepta’s Duchenne med eteplirsen, had left the agency, Parexel has confirmed to FierceCRO that he has now in fact joined their company.
The FDA said on Wednesday that Farkas had left the regulator, and Parexel ($PRXL) confirmed to me on the same day that he joined the CRO “earlier this month,” and will be consulting as VP of integrated product development.
Dr. Farkas became known as a big critic of Sarepta’s recent attempt to get its DMD drug onto the market, saying it did not have great enough efficacy to warrant a green light.
But he comes in at a tough time for Parexel, which recently lost its CFO, Ingo Bank, who quit over the summer just weeks before its Q4 results.
Several weeks ago, in a separate update, the CRO said it was delaying its mandated SEC performance report due to an “incident of misappropriation of corporate funds by an employee.”