Gene ther­a­py pi­o­neer Kathy High has left Spark af­ter com­plet­ing $4.3B union with Roche

Kathy High ded­i­cat­ed the past sev­en years of her life shep­herd­ing ex­per­i­men­tal gene ther­a­pies she’s de­vel­oped at Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal of Philadel­phia to­ward the mar­ket as pres­i­dent and head of R&D at Spark Ther­a­peu­tics. Now that the biotech start­up is ful­ly ab­sorbed in­to Roche — with an FDA ap­proval, a $4.3 bil­lion buy­out and a promis­ing he­mo­phil­ia pro­gram to boast — she’s ready to move on.

Roche con­firmed her de­par­ture with End­points News and not­ed “she will take some well-de­served time off and then will be­gin a new chap­ter in a sab­bat­i­cal at a uni­ver­si­ty.”

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER