Ab­b­Vie vet John Leonard moves up to the helm at CRISPR/Cas9 pi­o­neer In­tel­lia, fo­cused on loom­ing hu­man stud­ies

John Leonard, the for­mer top sci­en­tist at Ab­b­Vie and found­ing chief med­ical of­fi­cer at CRISPR/Cas9 play­er In­tel­lia Ther­a­peu­tics, is be­ing kicked up to the CEO’s of­fice.

Spawned by At­las and its clin­i­cal part­ner No­var­tis, In­tel­lia $NT­LA jumped out with a quick and suc­cess­ful IPO in ear­ly 2016, when the idea of gene edit­ing aroused in­tense in­vestor in­ter­est. The hon­ey­moon phase didn’t last long, though, leav­ing In­tel­lia an­gling for the clin­ic in the race to start test­ing the tech in hu­mans as in­vestors con­sid­ered the long R&D trek ahead. And along the way the sci­en­tif­ic founders of the top com­pa­nies like CRISPR Ther­a­peu­tics and Ed­i­tas $ED­IT have been wran­gling over con­trol of the IP.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER