It's Mon­cef Slaoui. Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion set­tles on ex-GSK vac­cines chief as Covid-19 R&D czar — re­ports

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has cho­sen their drug and vac­cine de­vel­op­ment czar to head up the R&D side of the Covid-19 at­tack plan, but it’s not Elias Zer­houni.

While Zer­houni — the ex-NIH and ex-Sanofi vet — fig­ured in the head­lines as the lead can­di­date for that spot, Politi­co and oth­er news out­lets are re­port­ing that the ad­min­is­tra­tion will tap ex-GSK ex­ec Mon­cef Slaoui for that role.

Slaoui spent years run­ning the drug de­vel­op­ment side of things, with some very mixed re­sults. While the phar­ma gi­ant scored a few mod­est wins, the R&D side fanned out on some big, game-chang­ing plays in the pipeline. Slaoui — in­quis­i­tive, ex­ceed­ing­ly bright and al­ways en­gaged — went on to fin­ish his lengthy stint at GSK run­ning the suc­cess­ful vac­cines part of the busi­ness, ex­pe­ri­ence that will come in very handy. And he went on to be­come a part­ner with the ven­ture crew at Medicxi, where he joined more than 2 years ago.

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