Al­ny­lam pres­i­dent Bar­ry Greene leaves af­ter 17 years, hand­ing po­si­tion over to Yvonne Green­street as biotech looks to­ward prof­itabil­i­ty

Af­ter 17 years help­ing Al­ny­lam steer con­trol of buzzy but un­proven sci­ence they promised could change med­i­cine, pres­i­dent Bar­ry Greene is leav­ing the RNAi biotech just as that tech­nol­o­gy is be­gin­ning to hit prime time.

Leav­ing to “pur­sue out­side in­ter­ests in the bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try,” the long­time ex­ec­u­tive will hand over the reins on Oc­to­ber 1 to cur­rent COO Yvonne Green­street. Green­street, a for­mer Pfiz­er and Glax­o­SmithK­line ex­ec­u­tive, in­her­its the high-pro­file spot at a com­pa­ny that’s proven its tech can work in rare dis­eases but now faces the daunt­ing task of turn­ing a cou­ple suc­cess­es and a new moun­tain of cash in­to drugs that are broad­ly ap­plic­a­ble and, cru­cial­ly, prof­itable.

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