Lilly's Garraway on his way to Roche as veteran Horning set to exit by year-end

Levi Garraway is set to take up one of the biggest hot seats in biopharma when he becomes the next chief medical officer and head of global product development at Roche in the fall.  

He will fill the large shoes left by the 10-year Roche-Genentech veteran Sandra Horning, who is retiring on the last day of this decade.

In a very brief release, the Swiss Big Pharma said that Garraway comes on board from the start of October, with the two working at the Big Pharma until December 31, when Horning officially leaves.

Garraway’s name will sound familiar as he was until very recently Eli Lilly’s SVP of oncology R&D, as well as heading up Lilly’s research laboratories novel target research. He will be based in South San Francisco.

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He left unexpectedly at the start of the month “to pursue other opportunities” and it turns out it was a pretty big one.

Lilly has been working on cancer drugs and new therapies but with limited success; Roche is one of the largest oncology players on the planet with its older oncology medicines still raking in billions of dollars each year, though it now wants more of a say in the next-gen form of cancer care.