Three weeks af­ter Bay­er put out word that Robert La­Caze, its head of their on­col­o­gy strate­gic busi­ness unit, was jump­ing ship, we now know where he’s head­ed: the transat­lantic T-cell biotech Mnemo Ther­a­peu­tics, where La­Caze will be tak­ing up the helm and mov­ing for­ward as CEO on May 1.

Alain Maiore

Found­ing CEO Alain Maiore is stay­ing with the com­pa­ny, but is piv­ot­ing his role from CEO to COO.

Michel Sade­lain, the CAR-T re­searcher and Juno co-founder at Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing, had put his name and cell en­gi­neer­ing tech­nol­o­gy be­hind the start­up when it of­fi­cial­ly launched back in June — and he’s list­ed as a sci­en­tif­ic co-founder. Maiore said at the time that they as a com­pa­ny were ready to bring on the next gen­er­a­tion of cell ther­a­pies in what­ev­er fla­vor they come.

About this time last year, the French biotech, which set a record last year for the high­est Se­ries A out of a French biotech at $90 mil­lion, had on­ly 7 em­ploy­ees. As of this week, they are now at 45 em­ploy­ees — with of­fices and labs in Paris, New York and now Prince­ton, where La­Caze and some re­searchers will be work­ing out of.

La­Caze told End­points News this morn­ing that he had helped pick Chris­tine Roth as his re­place­ment at Bay­er, where he had been work­ing for the last six years. La­Caze and Roth are for­mer col­leagues — they did their front­line man­ag­er train­ing to­geth­er while they both worked at Bris­tol My­ers Squibb back in the 1990s. So when Roth takes over his role on March 1, he will be­gin his tran­si­tion out of Bay­er and bring her up to speed on his now-for­mer job while en­gag­ing more with Mnemo.

“But at some point in time, when I was look­ing at my ca­reer and what I want­ed to do, you know… It’s a nat­ur­al tran­si­tion for me to tran­si­tion to a CEO type of role. But I want­ed to be very care­ful which type of com­pa­ny I went to,” La­Caze said.

And one night, La­Caze got a call, where he and Mnemo got con­nect­ed.

In bring­ing La­Caze aboard the biotech, Maiore told End­points:

What I re­al­ly want­ed to avoid as a founder is a pit­fall of many Eu­ro­pean biotech com­pa­nies where the founders are glued to their chairs and they don’t know when to bring the right tal­ent to pro­pel the com­pa­ny for­ward. I re­al­ly want­ed to avoid that mis­take. And you know, it’s been re­al­ly a pleas­ant jour­ney. The more we spoke with and talked with Robert, the more we felt that we could work well to­geth­er. And so the board and in­vestors share that per­spec­tive that Robert can make a huge con­tri­bu­tion in putting this com­pa­ny on the map.

What’s next for the com­pa­ny? Ac­cord­ing to Maiore, one of the big goals is to raise a Se­ries B — which he and La­Caze will do to­geth­er. When the biotech raised the Se­ries A last year, Mnemo ex­pect­ed it would last the biotech three years, through 2024. How­ev­er, Maiore says that they are ahead of sched­ule in terms of re­search, and spar­ing some of the de­tails, they are look­ing at rais­ing the Se­ries B be­fore the three years are up.

And on the re­search and pipeline side, the com­pa­ny has a few pre­clin­i­cal as­sets in play, Maiore told End­points — and the biotech hopes to have com­plet­ed INDs by the end of 2023.

The FDA has rejected Verrica Pharmaceuticals’ skin disease treatment for a third time — and once again the contract manufacturer is to blame.

The biotech emphasized that the only deficiency in the complete response letter is related to a general reinspection of the CMO, Sterling Pharmaceuticals, and has nothing to do specifically with its drug-device; the rest of the NDA is good to go.

CEO Ted White said the company is “extremely disappointed,” but will keep working toward approval.

NIAID director Anthony Fauci gained hero status amid the pandemic, earning Americans’ trust and even Time magazine’s Guardian of the Year title. But he and other federal health officials have also faced intense threats, according to charges brought by the US Department of Justice.

A West Virginia man is facing up to 10 years in prison after threatening Fauci, former NIH director Francis Collins, and HHS assistant secretary for health Rachel Levine via email, the DOJ said on Monday. Thomas Patrick Connally, Jr., pleaded guilty on Monday to using an anonymous email address to threaten the officials for performing their official duties, including discussing Covid-19 testing and prevention.

Vanda Pharmaceuticals is making a name for itself, at least in terms of suing the FDA.

The DC-headquartered firm on Monday filed its latest suit against the agency, with the company raising concerns over the FDA’s failure to grant a fast track designation for Vanda’s potential chronic digestive disorder drug tradipitant, which is a neurokinin 1 receptor antagonist.

Specifically, Vanda said FDA’s “essential point” in its one-page denial letter on the designation pointed to “the lack of necessary safety data,” which was “inconsistent with the criteria for … Fast Track designation.”