→ Af­ter a lit­tle over a year and a half at Al­pha­bet’s Ver­i­ly, neu­ro­sci­en­tist Dr. Thomas In­sel is join­ing the mys­te­ri­ous com­pa­ny’s ex­o­dus of tal­ent and call­ing it quits. In­sel ran the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Men­tal Health pri­or to his gig at Ver­i­ly. These days you can find him as the pres­i­dent and co-founder at a start­up called Mind­strong Health, which “has de­vel­oped and patent­ed a bio­mark­er pan­el that mea­sures brain func­tion from in­ter­ac­tion pat­terns cap­tured pas­sive­ly and con­tin­u­ous­ly from hu­man-com­put­er in­ter­faces found in ubiq­ui­tous mo­bile tech­nol­o­gy.”

Robert Califf

→ En­ter­ing the Ver­i­ly realm is Robert Califf. The ex-FDA com­mis­sion­er pre­vi­ous­ly worked with Ver­i­ly head An­dew Con­rad be­fore to head­ing up the agency. He’s al­so back at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty. “Af­ter con­clud­ing what has been an amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence as FDA Com­mis­sion­er, I’m ex­cit­ed to turn to a new ca­reer with Ver­i­ly and Duke Uni­ver­si­ty,” says Califf in his Ver­i­ly blog post.

→  Al­most ex­act­ly four years af­ter be­ing named per­ma­nent chief sci­en­tif­ic of­fi­cer at Bio­gen, Spy­ros Ar­ta­va­nis-Tsakonas has qui­et­ly left the com­pa­ny. The cell bi­ol­o­gy spe­cial­ist has been a pro­fes­sor at Har­vard Med­ical School since 1999. And now he’s head­ed back with fund­ing from Bio­gen on new re­search in­to neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases. The big biotech gets an op­tion on li­cens­ing new tech from his lab in ex­change for the fund­ing.

→  For­mer Sarep­ta CEO Chris Garabe­di­an has won $15 mil­lion from some loy­al back­ers at Per­cep­tive Ad­vi­sors to es­tab­lish Xon­toge­ny, which promis­es to guide biotech star­tups through the first crit­i­cal stage of de­vel­op­ment lead­ing to proof-of-con­cept da­ta. Garabe­di­an is run­ning the show and he’s now re­cruit­ing a team.

→ Patrick Am­stutz has made the jump from in­ter­im CEO to the re­al deal. Am­stutz helmed Mol­e­c­u­lar Part­ners af­ter Chris­t­ian Zahn left the job late last year.

→ Ox­itec CEO Ha­dyn Par­ry is join­ing the moth­er ship. Par­ry has been bumped up to VP of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment, Eu­rope, the Mid­dle East, and Africa for In­trex­on. Look for Mark Carnegie-Brown to be in charge of Ox­itec as the new CEO.

→  Is­rael’s Al­co­bra said that CEO Yaron Daniely is step­ping down to head up the tech trans­fer arm at He­brew Uni­ver­si­ty.

→ Cy­tomX is shuf­fling the deck, with Bob Goetz ex­it­ing the CFO po­si­tion of the South San Fran­cis­co, CA-based biotech to “pur­sue new op­por­tu­ni­ties.” De­ban­jan Ray is now the new CFO and head of cor­po­rate de­vel­op­ment. “De­ban­jan has been in­stru­men­tal to Cy­tomX’s busi­ness suc­cess, in­clud­ing struc­tur­ing and ex­e­cut­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions that have re­sult­ed in more than $300 mil­lion in up­front and mile­stone pay­ments to date and to­tal po­ten­tial deal val­ue in ex­cess of $5 bil­lion,” said CEO Sean Mc­Carthy.

→ Ac­tini­um CEO Kaushik J. Dave and Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Of­fi­cer Dra­gan Ci­cic have both re­signed from the com­pa­ny

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.

Incyte touted an accelerated approval for its PD-1 retifanlimab in a rare skin cancer on Wednesday, roughly a year and a half after the drug suffered a rejection in squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC).

Retifanlimab, marketed as Zynyz, was approved for metastatic or recurrent locally advanced Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a fast-growing skin cancer typically characterized by a single, painless nodule. It’s roughly 40 times rarer than melanoma, according to the nonprofit Skin Cancer Foundation — but incidence is growing, particularly among older adults, Incyte said in its announcement.

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.