In a bit­ter­sweet tran­si­tion, Doug Williams takes on his next big biotech chal­lenge

Doug Williams is mov­ing on.

Just days af­ter sound­ing taps in bank­rupt­cy court over Co­di­ak Bio­Sciences, where he helped spear­head the work as CEO, Williams is back in the sad­dle, this time as R&D chief at Sana Biotech­nol­o­gy. And he’s join­ing the cell and gene ther­a­py pi­o­neer along­side Ver­tex vet Gary Meininger, who’s tak­ing over as CMO at a cru­cial time for the biotech.

Williams is a well-known fig­ure in biotech, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Cam­bridge/Boston cir­cles. He head­ed re­search at Bio­gen un­der George Scan­gos at a crit­i­cal pas­sage in its his­to­ry, and counts lead­ing posts at a range of biotechs over the years. His jump to­day il­lus­trates the val­ue of a lengthy ca­reer build­ing re­la­tion­ships through­out the in­dus­try. Warm and per­son­able, Williams has al­ways stood out of the crowd in his own gen­er­al­ly low-key way.

This article is for premium subscribers only

Upgrade to a premium subscription plan for unlimited access, and join our community of key biopharma players.

UPGRADE