Third Rock, Take­da-backed Am­bys ush­ers in ex-NGM Bio pres­i­dent Jeff Jonker as CEO

Trained as a lawyer, Jeff Jonker has a lot in com­mon with Mer­ck’s Ken Fra­zier, who was in charge of de­fend­ing Mer­ck’s con­tro­ver­sial Vioxx in the courts be­fore ris­ing to the post of CEO in 2011. Jonker — part of the ex­ec­u­tive team at NGM Bio that inked a $450 mil­lion re­search deal with Mer­ck in 2015 — has now al­so risen to the ranks of CEO, at Third Rock-backed Am­bys Med­i­cines.

The an­nounce­ment comes months af­ter the com­pa­ny — named af­ter the Mex­i­can sala­man­der famed for re­gen­er­at­ing limbs: Am­bystoma mex­i­canum — se­cured $140 mil­lion in launch mon­ey and an elu­sive deal with Japan’s Take­da. The Red­wood City, Cal­i­for­nia-based com­pa­ny is tar­get­ing liv­er dis­ease on three fronts: cell ther­a­py for liv­er re­gen­er­a­tion; gene ther­a­py for liv­er restora­tion; and small mol­e­cule ther­a­py to re­place lost pro­tein func­tion.

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