Scoop: Med­Im­mune chief Bahi­ja Jal­lal is leav­ing As­traZeneca and join­ing the trek in­to biotech

Six years af­ter As­traZeneca’s then new CEO Pas­cal So­ri­ot named Bahi­ja Jal­lal pres­i­dent of the big Med­Im­mune sub­sidiary in Gaithers­burg, MD, putting her at the cen­ter of the com­pa­ny’s R&D turn­around plans, the long­time phar­ma ex­ec is join­ing the great mi­gra­tion of in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als to biotech.

Eliot Forster

Jal­lal is tak­ing the helm at Im­muno­core next week, a promi­nent TCR play­er in the UK which has been go­ing through a re­mark­able shake­up af­ter the orig­i­nal team un­der CEO Eliot Forster — now chief at F-star — ei­ther left or were forced out. Im­muno­core was able to raise $320 mil­lion a lit­tle more than 3 years ago — a time when that kind of mon­ey was still able to cause as­ton­ish­ment in the in­dus­try.

This wasn’t the first such biotech job to come along, Jal­lal tells me in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view ahead of the an­nounce­ment. “But when the right one is there you jump on it.”

The job starts on Mon­day, and Jal­lal says she feels like “a kid in a can­dy store” when it comes to Im­muno­core, a com­pa­ny with a broad plat­form that is built to ac­com­mo­date on­col­o­gy as well as in­fec­tious dis­eases and au­toim­mune con­di­tions.

And Jal­lal isn’t the on­ly se­nior As­traZeneca ex­ec head­ing to new biotech fields. The Wall Street Jour­nal re­ports to­day that Mark Mal­lon — cur­rent EVP in charge of port­fo­lio strat­e­gy — is on his way to take the CEO job at Iron­wood, as that com­pa­ny splits up un­der pres­sure and Pe­ter Hecht leaves to run the R&D spin­out.

An­drew Hotchkiss

Over the past year-plus Im­muno­core has run in­to some se­vere tur­bu­lence af­ter it tried to shop a new round at its old uni­corn val­u­a­tion. Po­ten­tial in­vestors weren’t ready to buy in, trig­ger­ing an ex­o­dus at the top and a move up for chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer An­drew Hotchkiss as in­ter­im chief.

Jal­lal says Hotchkiss has done a great job this year, which in­cludes ink­ing a ma­jor new pact with Genen­tech, and he’ll go back to con­cen­trat­ing on his com­mer­cial fo­cus with an eye on ad­vanc­ing Im­muno­core’s late-stage can­cer ther­a­py to­ward the mar­ket.

“I can tell you there’s been a lot of progress in the past year,” she adds. “Next week we’re go­ing to JP­Mor­gan and share the sto­ry with the in­vestor com­mu­ni­ty and oth­ers. My in­ten­tion is to bring re­as­sur­ance to in­vestors that I will bring sta­bil­i­ty to the or­ga­ni­za­tion, bring the best team and have the vi­sion we can all work to­geth­er and show them why I am join­ing the com­pa­ny.”

Mene Pan­ga­los

Jal­lal was one of three top R&D ex­ecs So­ri­ot picked for the Big Phar­ma’s turn­around in 2013. Brig­gs Mor­ri­son left sev­er­al years ago to run Syn­dax. That leaves Mene Pan­ga­los and his new col­leagues to run the show at As­traZeneca’s re­search and de­vel­op­ment op­er­a­tions.

There’s no im­me­di­ate word on who will re­place Jal­lal at Med­im­mune, where she steered 5 drugs to an ap­proval, in­clud­ing their check­point play­er Imfinzi.


Im­age: Bahi­ja Jal­lal. MED­IM­MUNE

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Clay Siegall, Morphimmune CEO

Up­dat­ed: Ex-Seagen chief Clay Sie­gall emerges as CEO of pri­vate biotech

Clay Siegall will be back in the CEO seat, taking the helm of a private startup working on targeted cancer therapies.

It’s been almost a year since Siegall resigned from Seagen, the biotech he co-founded and led for more than 20 years, in the wake of domestic violence allegations by his then-wife. His eventual successor, David Epstein, sold the company to Pfizer in a $43 billion deal unveiled last week.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Zhi Hong, Brii Biosciences CEO

Brii Bio­sciences stops man­u­fac­tur­ing Covid-19 an­ti­body com­bo, plans to with­draw EUA re­quest

Brii Biosciences said it will stop manufacturing its Covid-19 antibody combination, sold in China, and is working to withdraw its emergency use authorization request in the US, which it started in October 2021.

The Beijing and North Carolina biotech commercially launched the treatment in China last July but is now axing the work and reverting resources to other “high-priority programs,” per a Friday update. The focus now is namely hepatitis B viral infection, postpartum depression and major depressive disorders.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Sergio Traversa, Relmada Therapeutics CEO

Rel­ma­da makes 'crit­i­cal changes' to PhI­II tri­al to try and save de­pres­sion drug

Relmada Therapeutics is making changes to its Phase III study of its lead drug for major depressive disorder, in an attempt to avoid problems with a prior trial that showed little difference between the drug and a placebo.

That failure in October wiped 80% from Relmada’s stock price, and was followed by another negative readout a few months later. In both cases, the company said that there had been trial sites that were associated with what it called surprising placebo effects that skewed the results compared with the drug, REL-1017.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Paul Song, NKGen Biotech CEO

NK cell ther­a­py-fo­cused biotech eyes SPAC deal

A small, Santa Ana-based biotech created in 2017 is looking to enter a SPAC deal as it lays out plans to begin trials in its lead cell therapy candidates and bring on new executives.

Graf Acquisition Corp. IV and NKGen Biotech announced Thursday, with few other details, that the two companies signed a non-binding letter of intent to “pursue a business combination.” Graf Acquisition II and III withdrew their IPOs last year.

In­cyte hit by CRL on ex­tend­ed-re­lease JAK tablets, mud­dy­ing plans for Jakafi fran­chise ex­pan­sion

The FDA has rejected Incyte’s extended-release formulation of ruxolitinib tablets, in a surprise setback for the company’s plans to build on its blockbuster Jakafi franchise.

The ruxolitinib XR tablets are designed to be taken once a day, whereas Jakafi is indicated for twice daily dosage (although some patients can take it once daily).

According to Incyte, the FDA acknowledged in its complete response letter that the study submitted in the NDA “met its objective of bioequivalence based on area under the curve (AUC) parameters but identified additional requirements for approval.”

Peter Hecht, Cyclerion Therapeutics CEO

Hard pressed for cash, Cy­cle­ri­on looks for help fund­ing rare dis­ease drug

Cyclerion Therapeutics may have the design of a Phase IIb study ready to go, but it’s scrambling for a way to fund it.

The company said in a press release that it’s “actively evaluating the best combination of capital, capabilities, and transactions available to it to advance the development of zagociguat,” its lead candidate for a rare, genetic mitochondrial disease known as MELAS.

In a separate SEC filing, Cyclerion once again flagged “substantial doubt about (its) ability to continue as a going concern.” As of the end of 2022, it had cash and cash equivalents of only $13.4 million.

FDA ad­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for Bio­gen's ALS drug

A panel of outside advisors to the FDA unanimously recommended that the agency grant accelerated approval to Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen despite the drug failing the primary goal of its Phase III study, an endorsement that could pave a path forward for the treatment.

By a 9-0 vote, members of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee said there was sufficient evidence that tofersen’s effect on a certain protein associated with ALS is reasonably likely to predict a benefit for patients. But panelists stopped short of advocating for a full approval, voting 3-5 against (with one abstention) and largely citing the failed pivotal study.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Alaa Halawa, executive director at Mubadala’s US venture group

The ven­ture crew at Mubadala are up­ping their biotech cre­ation game, tak­ing care­ful aim at a new fron­tier in drug de­vel­op­ment

It started with a cup of coffee and a slow burning desire to go early and long in the biotech creation business.

Wrapping up a 15-year discovery stint at Genentech back in the summer of 2021, Rami Hannoush was treated to a caffeine-fueled review of the latest work UCSF’s Jim Wells had been doing on protein degradation — one of the hottest fields in drug development.

“Jim and I have known each other for the past 15 years through Genentech collaborations. We met over coffee, and he was telling me about this concept of the company that he was thinking of,” says Hannoush. “And I got immediately intrigued by it because I knew that this could open up a big space in terms of adding a new modality in drug discovery that is desperately needed in pharma.”

Endpoints Premium

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.