José Basel­ga, the bril­liant on­col­o­gy R&D chief at As­traZeneca and a tow­er­ing fig­ure in can­cer drug de­vel­op­ment who had ear­li­er been chief med­ical of­fi­cer at Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing, has died at the age of 61.

Basel­ga suc­cumbed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob dis­ease, a rapid­ly pro­gres­sive and lethal neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­ease close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with mad cow dis­ease that is trig­gered in about 1 in every mil­lion peo­ple.

Pas­cal So­ri­ot moved swift­ly to re­or­ga­nize As­traZeneca’s R&D op­er­a­tions around Basel­ga af­ter he joined from Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing, where he had gar­nered ac­co­lades for his work in can­cer R&D.

News of his sud­den and shock­ing death spread swift­ly on Twit­ter, as col­leagues and friends weighed in with their farewells.

Shocked and dev­as­tat­ed by to­day’s news of José’s pass­ing. He was a bril­liant on­col­o­gist, a fan­tas­tic drug de­vel­op­er and a won­der­ful, in­spir­ing and chal­leng­ing col­league. We have lost a spe­cial and ir­re­place­able per­son to­day. pic.twit­ter.com/c63bxR­lvS4

— Menelas Pan­ga­los (@MenePan­ga­los) March 21, 2021

José Basel­ga, MD, PhD— revered AACR Past Pres­i­dent, Fel­low of the AACR Acad­e­my, and an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned ex­pert in the de­vel­op­ment of mol­e­c­u­lar tar­get­ed agents— has died at the age of 61. We of­fer heart­felt con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, col­leagues, and friends. #AACR­Fel­lows pic.twit­ter.com/JFA9wskPzX

— AACR (@AACR) March 21, 2021

The Barcelona na­tive had an in­stant im­pact on the pipeline at As­traZeneca, di­rect­ing the phar­ma gi­ant to a late-stage al­liance on En­her­tu, which was quick­ly re­ward­ed with an ap­proval and a shot at a rapid­ly ex­pand­ing fran­chise. So­ri­ot hailed him at the time he joined the com­pa­ny as an “out­stand­ing sci­en­tif­ic leader” whose work at MSK had led to a va­ri­ety of sig­nif­i­cant new can­cer drugs. He had worked as an ad­vis­er with some of the biggest play­ers in on­col­o­gy, though his fail­ure to con­sis­tent­ly cite those re­la­tion­ships in the lit­er­a­ture would lead to a dust-up that led to his ex­it from MSK.

Basel­ga apol­o­gized di­rect­ly for that, and quite a num­ber of peo­ple in in­dus­try had felt that the con­tro­ver­sy was overblown at the time.

A not­ed breast can­cer spe­cial­ist, Basel­ga has been cit­ed for his ef­forts around PI3K re­search, which has more re­cent­ly in­spired fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion around mTOR and AKT in­hi­bi­tion.

So­ri­ot of­fered a heart­felt trib­ute to­day:

José cham­pi­oned our trans­for­ma­tive col­lab­o­ra­tions with Dai­ichi-Sankyo in re­la­tion to the clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of En­her­tu (trastuzum­ab derux­te­can) and datopotam­ab derux­te­can, two med­i­cines which have demon­strat­ed great po­ten­tial to ben­e­fit can­cer pa­tients. He led a team to ac­cel­er­ate oth­er ex­cit­ing new sci­ence in an­ti­body-drug con­ju­gates, cell ther­a­py, epi­ge­net­ics, as well as new can­cer treat­ments. He al­so cham­pi­oned the use of re­al-world ev­i­dence and dig­i­tal tools to trans­form the way we de­sign and im­ple­ment clin­i­cal tri­als.

José built a world-class On­col­o­gy R&D team who will miss him dear­ly, just as all his col­leagues will through­out our en­tire Com­pa­ny.

José was more than a col­league to me. He was a friend, and some­one I im­mense­ly re­spect­ed and cher­ished. I will enor­mous­ly miss hav­ing him along­side me, and I will con­tin­ue to be in­spired by his work and vi­sion.

I had a chance to talk to Basel­ga about his work at As­traZeneca re­cent­ly, which you can see here.

Basel­ga’s daugh­ter — Clara Basel­ga-Gar­ri­ga — launched a fundrais­er Sun­day to sup­port re­search in­to Creutzfeldt-Jakob dis­ease (CJD). You can check it out here.

89bio said its drug was better than placebo at lessening fibrosis without worsening nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, in two of three dose groups.

The San Francisco biotech said it thinks the Phase IIb data pave the way for a potential Phase III, following in the footsteps of another biotech in its drug class, Akero Therapeutics. To fund a late-stage study, CEO Rohan Palekar told Endpoints News 89bio “would need to raise additional capital,” with the company having about $188 million at the end of last year.

Today, we’re opening nominations for our fifth annual Women in Biopharma R&D special report.

Over the last four years, we’ve honored 80 women whose extraordinary accomplishments have changed the game in biopharma R&D. We’re looking for big thinkers, scientists, executives and other enterprising women who are breaking barriers in drug development and inspiring the next generation of leaders.