Welcome to this week's Chutes & Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please send the good word—or the bad—from your shop to Conor Hale, and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Gilead swipes Roche pharma chief for CEO post
Gilead Sciences
Daniel O’Day will take the helm at Gilead March 1.
Gilead poached longtime Roche pharma executive Daniel O’Day, who has helped the Swiss drugmaker lead the industry in oncology sales. GIlead's CEO John Milligan and chairman and former CEO John Martin announced their plans to step down this past summer. The big biotech aims to boost its revenues from cancer drugs and elsewhere, including from its CAR-T player Yescarta, following declining demand and increased pricing pressure for its hepatitis C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni. Meanwhile, Roche will replace O'Day with the CEO of its Genentech unit, Bill Anderson, who will move from San Francisco to Basel to lead the company's entire pharma business. FiercePharma
Merck promotes oncology, vaccine executives to replace outgoing global health president
Merck & Co.
Adam Schechter, president of global human health, will move into an advisory role, starting Dec. 31.
The New Jersey pharma giant will split its global health president role post, which Schechter has held since 2010, into two separate positions. First, the president of the company's global oncology business, Frank Clyburn, will move up to chief commercial officer. In addition, Merck's vaccine head, Michael Nally, will take on the newly created role of chief marketing officer. Clyburn has helped drive sales of the drugmaker’s most important product, the immuno-oncology star Keytruda, while Nally has helped steer Gardasil to big revenues in recent quarters. FiercePharma
Gritstone ramps up bispecifics with new antibody therapeutics chief
Gritstone Oncology
Jonah Rainey, Ph.D., will serve as VP of antibody therapeutics.
Rainey, who worked on bispecific antibodies for more than a decade and put in time at MacroGenics and MedImmune, will head up Gritstone's bispecific antibody program as it moves into lead optimization. Its lead asset, a neoantigen cancer treatment called GRANITE-001, is headed for a phase 1/2 combination trial with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo. The Bay Area biotech raised about $100 million through its Nasdaq IPO earlier this year. FierceBiotech
> Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan described the moves the company is making to attract a new generation of employees, including shifting from its hierarchical culture and adding jeans to the dress code. FiercePharma
> Akorn CEO Raj Rai is stepping down in the wake of a failed $4.3 billion merger with Fresenius and months of legal back-and-forth. The move comes after Delaware's top court ruled that Fresenius had backed out of the deal legally after data integrity problems had emerged. Amid the legal battle, Akorn's share price has tumbled to about $4.25, from about $33 last year. FiercePharma
> Bristol Myers-Squibb's head of discovery, Carl Decicco, Ph.D., has joined Foghorn Therapeutics as chief scientific officer. Foghorn is developing medicines based on controlling gene expression through the chromatin regulatory system. Decicco will also serve as a venture partner at company backer Flagship Pioneering. Release
> The autophagy startup Casma Therapeutics named Third Rock Ventures’ Frank Gentile as its full-time chief operating officer. Gentile helped found Casma and secure $58.5 million in series A funds, and has served as interim COO for the past eight months. FierceBiotech
> Olympus Medical Systems and its former top regulatory executive in Japan have pleaded guilty to failing to file FDA-required adverse event reports detailing infections linked to its duodenoscopes. The Tokyo-based company was fined $80 million and ordered to forfeit an additional $5 million. Hisao Yabe, manager of the company’s quality and environment division, could face up to one year in prison after being sentenced in March 2019. FierceMedtech
> Roivant's rare-disease focused Enzyvant named George Elston as its chief financial officer and head of corporate development. Elston most recently served as president and CEO of 2X Oncology and was previously CFO of Juniper Pharmaceuticals. Release
> Synlogic appointed Antoine Awad as head of technical operations. Awad, who has been a consultant for the company since October, was previously senior VP of operations and CMC and head of manufacturing for Abpro Therapeutics. Before that, he spent 10 years at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. Release
> Boehringer Ingelheim plans to cut 327 of its 2,800 workers in France, following a $12.5 billion asset swap with Sanofi in 2016. The move will also create 32 positions, for a net loss of 295, BI's president in France, Jean Scheftsik de Szolnok, told FiercePharma in an interview.
> Meanwhile, Sanofi is planning 670 "voluntary departures" in France between now and 2020, across its human resources, IT and finance departments, among others. However, it also plans to recruit 250 people in the country. FiercePharma