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.

The EMA is putting EU member states on alert over the shortage of two drugs that counter heart attacks due to an uptick in demand.

On Friday, the EMA sent out a warning that two Boehringer Ingelheim drugs are experiencing a shortage: Actilyse and Metalyse. The drugs are used as emergency treatments for adults experiencing acute myocardial infarction, or a heart attack, by dissolving blood clots that have formed in the blood vessels.

Fujifilm’s CDMO arm, Fujifilm Diosynth, has been on a roll this month as the company has recently broken ground on a major project in Europe and it appears to be keeping up the momentum.

Fujifilm Diosynth announced that it has kicked off an expansion project for its microbial manufacturing facility at its campus in the town of Billingham, UK, in the northeast of England.

The 20,000 square-foot, £400 million ($435 million) expansion will add clean rooms, purification suites and a packing area along with more space for the manufacturing itself.

Back in April, Amgen said it was encouraged by the solicitor general’s anticipated review of its Supreme Court petition to rehear a Repatha patent case. They’re likely much less optimistic about the outcome now.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a recent 27-page brief that Amgen’s arguments “lack merit and further review is not warranted.”

The case traces back to a suit filed in 2014 against Sanofi and Regeneron’s Praluent, which ended up beating Amgen’s PCSK9 blockbuster Repatha to market by a month just a year later.

At Klick Health’s first Ideas Exchange conference with biotech and pharma industry insiders since before the pandemic began, it was no surprise many conversations included Covid topics. Yet while vaccines and treatments were discussed, so too were the effects on drug development, federal responses, health inequities — and what to do now and next.

George Yancopoulos, chief scientist and cofounder of Regeneron, opened the conference responding to a question from Acorda CEO Ron Cohen about the spotlight on the industry during Covid and some of the “flak” biopharma has taken in the past.