It’s of­fi­cial. Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing has picked a brain can­cer ex­pert as its new physi­cian-in-chief and CMO, re­plac­ing José Basel­ga, who left un­der a cloud af­ter be­ing sin­gled out by The New York Times and ProP­ub­li­ca for fail­ing to prop­er­ly air his lu­cra­tive in­dus­try ties.

His re­place­ment, who now will be in charge of MSK’s cut­ting-edge re­search work as well as the can­cer care de­liv­ered by hun­dreds of prac­ti­tion­ers, is Lisa M. DeAn­ge­lis. DeAn­ge­lis had been chair of the neu­rol­o­gy de­part­ment and co-founder of MSK’s brain tu­mor cen­ter and was moved in to the act­ing CMO role in the wake of Basel­ga’s de­par­ture.

The Times cov­er­age not­ed that DeAn­ge­lis sought to as­sure staffers that MSK rec­og­nized their con­cerns, but added that she was quick to high­light any up­beat news about their ac­com­plish­ments, in­clud­ing the ap­proval of Vi­t­rakvi — which they played a role in — and their han­dling of Supreme Court Jus­tice Ruth Bad­er Gins­burg’s can­cer care.

Craig Thomp­son MSKCC

“Her ex­per­tise and unique un­der­stand­ing of MSK’s mis­sion make her the ide­al per­son to lead MSK’s clin­i­cal en­ter­prise in­to the fu­ture,” said MSK CEO Craig Thomp­son in a state­ment.

It al­so se­cures a promi­nent po­si­tion at one of the most high-pro­file re­search cen­ters in the world, where in­ves­ti­ga­tors have played a big role in the rapid­ly evolv­ing world of can­cer drug re­search.

Al­most ex­act­ly a year ago, Basel­ga was swept up in con­tro­ver­sy when The Times pub­lished a sto­ry out­lin­ing fre­quent cas­es when he ig­nored list­ing his ex­ten­sive ties to the bio­phar­ma in­dus­try. Soon af­ter the sto­ry hit he bowed out of MSK as well as the board of Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb, and then a few months lat­er was back as the new can­cer R&D chief at As­traZeneca, which has been mak­ing ma­jor strides with its on­col­o­gy group. 

Though con­tro­ver­sial at the time, Basel­ga al­so re­ceived con­sid­er­able sup­port for his stance that he hadn’t in­tend­ed to de­ceive any­one, and of­ten de­light­ed in dis­cussing the same high-pro­file ties that he ne­glect­ed to list when nec­es­sary. As for MSK, the em­bar­rass­ment of be­ing in the crosshairs of The Times trig­gered a wide-rang­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which de­ter­mined that many of its re­searchers had done the same. And the aca­d­e­m­ic re­search cen­ter adopt­ed new rules bar­ring top ex­ecs from sit­ting on the boards of for-prof­it com­pa­nies.

That led Thomp­son to cut his ties to Mer­ck’s board, which paid about $300,000 a year.

DeAn­ge­lis will have plen­ty to do with­out the high-lev­el in­dus­try ties that once came with her po­si­tion.

Dupixent, the blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug from Sanofi and Regeneron, has cleared a high-stakes Phase III study in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the companies announced Thursday morning.

If they hold up in a second, identical trial, the data pave the way for Dupixent to become the first biologic to treat patients whose COPD remains uncontrolled despite being on maximal standard-of-care inhaled therapy — the patient population studied in the pivotal program. The companies had spotlighted this as a key readout as they look to expand the Dupixent franchise and explore its full potential.

Novartis is calling off a UK-based trial for Leqvio in the primary prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with high cholesterol, the company confirmed on Wednesday.

The Swiss pharma giant made the decision after “careful evaluation,” a spokesperson told Endpoints News via email. The trial, dubbed ORION-17, was planned in partnership with England’s National Health Service (NHS) and was part of the company’s strategy to establish Leqvio as a standard of care in cardiovascular disease management.