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.

Despite whispers of a busy year for M&A, deal activity in the pharma space is actually down 30% on a semi-annualized basis, according to PwC’s latest report on deal activity. But don’t rule out larger deals in the second half of the year, the consultants said.

PwC pharmaceutical and life sciences consulting solutions leader Glenn Hunzinger expects to see Big Pharma companies picking up earlier stage companies to try and fill pipeline gaps ahead of a slew of big patent cliffs. Though a bear market continues to maul the biotech sector, Hunzinger said recent deals indicate that pharma companies are still paying above current trading prices.

Following the Supreme Court’s historic decision on Friday to overturn Americans’ constitutional right to an abortion after almost 50 years, Attorney General Merrick Garland sought to somewhat reassure women that states will not be able to ban the prescription drug sometimes used for abortions.

Following the decision, the New England Journal of Medicine also published an editorial strongly condemning the reversal, saying it “serves American families poorly, putting their health, safety, finances, and futures at risk.”

GSK, newly branded and soon-to-be demerged, shared interim results from its Phase II trial on its chronic hepatitis B treatment, one that it says has the “potential to lead to a functional cure.”

At a presentation at the EASL International Liver Congress, GSK shared that in around 450 patients who received its hep B drug bepirovirsen for 24 weeks, just under 30% had hepatitis B surface antigen and viral DNA levels that were too low to detect.

The story of Amryt Pharma’s candidate for the genetic skin condition epidermolysis bullosa, or EB, will soon enter another chapter.

After the Irish drugmaker’s candidate, dubbed Oleogel-S10 and marketed as Filsuvez, was handed a CRL earlier this year, the company announced in a press release that it plans to submit a formal dispute resolution request for the company’s NDA for Oleogel-S10.