A pair of CDMOs are bringing in new CEOs.

Taking the helm at BioCina is Mark Womack. According to his LinkedIn profile, Womack has been in leadership positions at several contract manufacturers. His career spans more than 30 years, including roles such as CEO of the contract manufacturer KBI Biopharma and Selexis SA. Before that, he was CEO of Stelis Biopharma and chief business officer of Seattle-based manufacturer AGC Biologics.

Danish dermatology drugmaker Leo Pharma said it will split its R&D operations into two separate teams.

The company had about 6,000 employees in early 2022 but, at the time, said it would eliminate 1,000 positions in two years. Then, this January, Leo said it would further reduce headcount by about 300 positions in a rehashing of its sourcing model to emphasize external help in finding orals, topicals and biologics. Leo now says it employs 4,700 people worldwide.

GSK chief Emma Walmsley saw a slight pay raise amid what she called a “landmark year” for the company, including the spinout of its consumer health unit Haleon.

The CEO took home roughly £8.45 million in 2022 (nearly $10.3 million), up from £8.2 million the year prior. That includes a £37,000 salary boost and an added £868,000 in bonus money compared to 2021, according to a recent report.

However, her pay package continues to lag behind other pharma chiefs, including fellow UK-based AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, whose pay package totaled £15.3 million (more than $18.6 million) in 2022. American pharma chiefs tend to take home heftier pay packages, such as AbbVie CEO Rick Gonzalez, who brought in $26.2 million.

A proxy fight is brewing at Illumina as activist investor Carl Icahn argues that the DNA sequencing giant is costing shareholders billions by following through with its Grail purchase amid antirust challenges.

In a letter to Illumina shareholders on Monday morning, Icahn stated that $50 billion of value has been wiped from the company’s market capitalization since August 2021.

“This value destruction is a direct result of a series of ill-advised (and frankly inexplicable) actions taken by the board of directors of our company in connection with the acquisition of GRAIL, Inc.,” Icahn wrote. “To paraphrase William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, something is rotten in the state of Illumina.”

Olema Oncology will let go of a quarter of its workforce, as well as two top executives, as the biotech works to keep alive work on an experimental breast cancer drug that has so far been a disappointment.

The cuts will affect workers in R&D and corporate functions, the company said in a press release Thursday. Also out are CBO Kinney Horn and Cyrus Harmon, a co-founder of the company and its chief research officer. Harmon will stay as a member of the board. The company had 83 full-time employees as of Jan. 31, according to a financial filing.

More than two dozen employees in manufacturing and administrative roles at UMass Chan Medical School will be let go in late April.

The university’s MassBiologics unit notified 26 employees recently. Affected employees will receive severance and be offered outplacement services, a spokesperson said to Endpoints News in an emailed statement. The employees can apply for open positions elsewhere in the medical school, the spokesperson added.