We now know where Roche’s ex-phar­ma chief Bill An­der­son is go­ing.

Ger­man phar­ma gi­ant Bay­er an­nounced Wednes­day that An­der­son will be tak­ing on the role as CEO, less than six weeks af­ter An­der­son stepped down from his perch at Roche as head of the group’s phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal di­vi­sion.

Roche an­nounced back in De­cem­ber that An­der­son would de­part on Dec. 31 to “pur­sue op­por­tu­ni­ties out­side of Roche.” His re­place­ment, Genen­tech vet and Roche’s cur­rent head of glob­al prod­uct strat­e­gy, Tere­sa Gra­ham, will start her role in March.

Bay­er said that its su­per­vi­so­ry board ap­point­ed An­der­son to be­come CEO, which will take ef­fect on June 1, join­ing Bay­er’s man­age­ment board on April 1. Cur­rent CEO Wern­er Bau­mann, who has worked at Bay­er for the last three-plus decades and helmed the com­pa­ny for the past sev­en years, will be re­tir­ing from the con­glom­er­ate in May.

Bay­er al­so said that An­der­son and Bau­mann will be work­ing close­ly with each oth­er to en­sure a “smooth tran­si­tion” be­fore Bau­mann leaves his post.

An­der­son was elect­ed CEO in a unan­i­mous vote af­ter Bay­er start­ed search­ing for a new CEO some­time in the mid­dle of 2022, per a press re­lease.

An­der­son, who has a back­ground in chem­i­cal en­gi­neer­ing, start­ed out in the biotech world at Bio­gen, mak­ing his way up to VP and gen­er­al man­ag­er of the biotech’s neu­rol­o­gy busi­ness unit. Start­ing in 2006, he joined Genen­tech, work­ing up the lad­der be­tween Genen­tech and Roche un­til he be­came CEO of Genen­tech in late 2016.

Af­ter two years in that po­si­tion, he then switched to helm Roche Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, suc­ceed­ing cur­rent Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day.

Roche’s Phar­ma di­vi­sion is an acad­e­my for CEOs. Pas­cal So­ri­ot, Dan O’Day. Who­ev­er is next will be one too.

— Brad Lon­car (@brad­lon­car) De­cem­ber 10, 2018

Bay­er’s su­per­vi­so­ry board chair Nor­bert Winkeljo­hann said in a state­ment that An­der­son “is the ide­al can­di­date to lead Bay­er to­geth­er with the team in­to a new, suc­cess­ful chap­ter at a time of a dis­rup­tive in­no­va­tion cy­cle in bi­ol­o­gy, chem­istry and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.”

An­der­son said in a state­ment Wednes­day that Bay­er’s “lead­ing R&D in­vest­ments in agri­cul­ture, med­i­cines and con­sumer health hold the promise for ad­di­tion­al break­throughs.”

An­der­son will join Bay­er in the mid­dle of a year pre­vi­ous­ly ex­pect­ed to face the full brunt of in­fla­tion, akin to what Bau­mann said on Bay­er’s Q3 earn­ings call last year. While the im­pact of in­fla­tion was not strong­ly felt in the midst of Bay­er’s op­er­a­tions last year, he said to “ex­pect the full cost in­fla­tion ef­fects across the val­ue chain to ac­tu­al­ly ma­te­ri­al­ize” in 2023.

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is putting down more roots in the Bay Area.

The manufacturer opened the doors to a new cell therapy manufacturing facility next to the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center’s Mission Bay campus and on the university’s campus.

UCSF and Thermo Fisher have had a partnership since 2021, with the new site focusing on manufacturing cell therapeutics for certain cancers, including glioblastoma and multiple myeloma. The new site plans to use Thermo Fisher’s expertise in manufacturing services to help UCSF accelerate the development of cell therapies and eventually get them into the clinic, said Dan Herring, the general manager of cell therapy services at Thermo Fisher, in an interview with Endpoints News.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”

Catalent will be manufacturing a low-cost version of the opioid overdose treatment naloxone as part of a contract with Harm Reduction Therapeutics.

Catalent plans to manufacture the treatment at its facility in Morrisville, NC. No financial details on the deal were disclosed.

Harm Reduction was granted priority review status for the NDA on its spray last year. The company has been working on a naloxone product since 2017. It is anticipating approval in July of this year and a US launch in early 2024.