Bill Hinshaw, Axcella CEO

Say­ing good­bye to R&D chief, Flag­ship-backed Ax­cel­la drops PhII pro­gram as it fo­cus­es on long Covid, NASH

In its bid to be one of the first biotechs to de­vel­op a drug for long Covid, which im­pacts as many as 1 in 4 el­der Amer­i­cans, Ax­cel­la said Thurs­day it has com­plet­ed en­roll­ment in a Phase IIa study look­ing at fa­tigue-re­lat­ed lin­ger­ing symp­toms of the pan­dem­ic dis­ease.

But the com­pa­ny will have to make progress with its long Covid and NASH mid-stage pro­grams with­out its pres­i­dent of R&D, Al­i­son Schecter. She stepped down im­me­di­ate­ly yes­ter­day to “pur­sue oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties” af­ter 14 months with the Flag­ship-found­ed biotech, ac­cord­ing to an SEC fil­ing, and Ax­cel­la doesn’t cur­rent­ly have plans to re­place her, CEO Bill Hin­shaw told End­points News in an emailed state­ment.

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