Alessan­dro Ri­va

With its pipeline mired in bad da­ta and se­r­i­al set­backs and an­a­lysts de­mand­ing some sort of co­her­ent strate­gic re­sponse to the omi­nous down­turn in its hep C fran­chise, Gilead $GILD has man­aged to re­cruit one of the top names in on­col­o­gy drug de­vel­op­ment to head up its can­cer R&D ef­forts.

Alessan­dro Ri­va is turn­ing in his Big Phar­ma cre­den­tials at No­var­tis $NVS to move in­to the big biotech, which has tak­en a drub­bing at the hands of dis­ap­point­ed an­a­lysts this year.

In the can­cer field, Gilead was forced to halt a slate of 6 stud­ies for Zy­delig in the spring of 2016 due to safe­ty is­sues. And that came af­ter the drug was clear­ly los­ing a race with Im­bru­vi­ca from J&J and Ab­b­Vie on leukemia and lym­phoma. Ab­b­Vie and Roche’s vene­to­clax, mean­while, is ex­pect­ed to gain mar­ket ground in CLL.

Then in No­vem­ber came sub­par da­ta for mo­melo­tinib, which has been strug­gling to dis­tin­guish it­self from Jakafi for myelofi­boris.

Clin­i­cal set­backs, though, are all the rage at Gilead, which has been rack­ing up fail­ures through­out 2016, in­clud­ing 4 straight flops late in the year.

What Gilead does have is cash, and plen­ty of it. Ri­vas may have less to do in the clin­ic right now than at the deal ta­ble, where Gilead may yet spend a sig­nif­i­cant amount of its cash re­serves on M&A and li­cens­ing. Gilead clear­ly needs to do more in on­col­o­gy/hema­tol­ogy.

Bri­an Abra­hams at Jef­feries thinks that could be the case. He not­ed:

We be­lieve the rel­a­tive­ly high-pro­file heme/onc chief hire sig­nals an in­creas­ing fo­cus in on­col­o­gy, a wel­come de­vel­op­ment, and ex­pect GILD to more ag­gres­sive­ly pur­sue BD to build out a broad­er can­cer pipeline– some­thing not sub­stan­tial­ly baked in­to most ex­pec­ta­tions but which we be­lieve could help im­prove sen­ti­ment around the name and LT rev­enue prospects. We ex­pect spec­u­lat­ed (s)mid-cap M&A can­di­dates like IN­CY could al­so trade up on this an­nounce­ment.

“I have al­ways ad­mired Gilead for its sci­en­tif­ic fo­cus and da­ta-dri­ven ap­proach to drug de­vel­op­ment,” Ri­va said in a state­ment. “I look for­ward to work­ing along­side Gilead’s ded­i­cat­ed and pas­sion­ate col­leagues through­out the R&D or­ga­ni­za­tion to tack­le the can­cer re­search and de­vel­op­ment chal­lenge with a goal of im­prov­ing the lives of pa­tients.”

A public T cell biotech’s chief executive has decided to leave the company.

TScan Therapeutics said Friday morning that CEO David Southwell stepped down earlier this week, leaving both his chief executive and board member roles. Filling in is Gavin MacBeath, the company’s CSO and COO. He became the acting CEO on Tuesday, and will continue to remain CSO and COO, TScan’s announcement read.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended nine drugs for approval this week while also giving thumbs up for six expanded indications, including Novo Nordisk’s approved obesity medication Wegovy for younger people. Wegovy is already approved as an obesity treatment in the EU for adults, and the new indication would allow prescriptions for adolescents aged 12 and older.

RNA biotech GreenLight Biosciences has been handed an offer for potential acquisition.

GreenLight said in a release that it has received a non-binding “indication of interest” from Fall Line Endurance Fund to acquire GreenLight’s capital stock for $0.60 per share in cash. The release said any potential agreement between the two parties would depend on certain conditions.

Through a special committee, the biotech will evaluate the offer but added there’s no certainty a deal will go forward. GreenLight will also not make any more announcements until a deal comes through or “otherwise determines” a statement is necessary.

The German life science group Sartorius will be picking up French contract manufacturer Polyplus for the price of €2.4 billion, or $2.6 billion.

On Friday, Sartorius announced the acquisition through its French subgroup, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, which will be acquiring Polyplus from private investors ARCHIMED and WP GG Holdings IV. Polyplus has 270 employees and produces materials and components that go into making viral vectors that are used in cell and gene therapies. This includes DNA/RNA reagents as well as plasmid DNA. Polyplus has locations in France, Belgium, China and the US.