Bioreg­num Opin­ion Col­umn by John Car­roll

We’re see­ing the C-suites of a whole group of biotech and phar­ma com­pa­nies in flux this week as lead­er­ship groups evolve and top ex­ecs hunt big­ger and bet­ter things for their ca­reers. Most of this news is en­cap­su­lat­ed in short, dry re­marks re­served for SEC fil­ings.

But the de­part­ing CMO at Ther­a­vance $TBPH, Brett Hau­mann, clear­ly want­ed it wide­ly known that he’s mak­ing a re­luc­tant ex­it at the com­pa­ny af­ter a 7-year stint. His 8-K this week notes he’s go­ing to change scenes and move to the UK as much for fam­i­ly rea­sons as any­thing else. And the note quotes him di­rect­ly.

(A)s you know, my wife and I are be­com­ing le­gal guardians to my sis­ter-in-law’s young son af­ter she sad­ly passed away. In or­der to sup­port his tran­si­tion in­to our fam­i­ly this year, I will need to be based full-time in the UK, rather than spend­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of my time in the US as I have done for the past sev­er­al years pri­or to the cur­rent pan­dem­ic trav­el re­stric­tions. Al­though I was not ac­tive­ly look­ing for a role, I have been for­tu­nate enough to be pre­sent­ed with a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty that is dif­fer­ent from Ther­a­vance Bio­phar­ma in both stage and ther­a­peu­tic fo­cus, that will al­low me to ap­ply my ex­per­tise and ex­pe­ri­ence to new chal­lenges and be based in the UK, aligned with our plans for our nephew. I have not come to this de­ci­sion light­ly and will be sad­dened to leave the com­pa­ny that has pro­vid­ed me with such a re­ward­ing set of per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ences over the past 7 years.

It’s im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that be­hind every move in the in­dus­try is a host of per­son­al events we don’t usu­al­ly know any­thing about.

Hau­mann, a physi­cian, spent 15 years de­vel­op­ing his skills at GSK be­fore de­part­ing and tak­ing the biotech trail.

Ther­a­vance is look­ing for his re­place­ment now.

President Joe Biden made clear in his “finish the job” State of the Union address last night that one of those jobs to be finished is insulin prices.

Biden’s push again to tackle insulin prices, after Republicans rebuffed the idea last summer and just after Biden won Medicare drug price negotiations/caps via the Inflation Reduction Act, shows how heavily he’s leaning into this work.

We now know where Roche’s ex-pharma chief Bill Anderson is going.

German pharma giant Bayer announced Wednesday that Anderson will be taking on the role as CEO, less than six weeks after Anderson stepped down from his perch at Roche as head of the group’s pharmaceutical division.

Roche announced back in December that Anderson would depart on Dec. 31 to “pursue opportunities outside of Roche.” His replacement, Genentech vet and Roche’s current head of global product strategy, Teresa Graham, will start her role in March.

As talk of AI this-and-that gobbles up headline after headline, one Big Pharma is losing its AI leader as she transitions to another drug giant: Iya Khalil will trade in her hat as Novartis’ go-to expert and leader in the space for Merck as VP and head of data, AI and genome sciences next week.

After nearly three years leading the artificial intelligence team at Novartis — as Big Pharma and biotechs alike latch onto the ripening AI-for-drug-discovery mode of operation — Khalil will switch employers to head up a similar post at Merck, where she’ll work out of Cambridge, MA beginning Feb. 13, the company tells Endpoints News.

Six weeks into his new role at the helm of Teva Pharmaceutical, Richard Francis said it’s time to “get back to growth,” starting with a good look at the company’s priorities.

The chief executive has kicked off a strategic review, he announced during Teva’s quarterly call, which will continue over the next several months and produce results sometime in the middle of 2023. That means some pipeline cuts may be in store, he told Endpoints News, while declining to offer much more detail.