Brandicourt stepped down from his role as chief executive officer of Sanofi last year.
Cambridge, Mass.-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals strengthened its board of directors with the appointment of longtime pharmaceutical executive Olivier Brandicourt, who stepped down from his role as chief executive officer of Sanofi last year.
Brandicourt will take a seat on RNAi therapeutics-focused Alnylam’s board of directors on March 2. In March 2019, Brandicourt announced his intentions to step down as the head of Sanofi. He was about to turn 65 years of age and the French company has an age limit restriction for its CEO. Brandicourt served as CEO of Sanofi from 2015 to 2019. Prior to that, he was CEO and chair of Bayer HealthCare from 2013 to 2015. Before his time with Bayer, Brandicourt spent 13 years at Pfizer in multiple leadership roles, including serving as president and general manager of the company’s Emerging Markets and Established Products business units.
Alnylam CEO John Maraganore said Brandicourt’s leadership history in three-storied pharmaceutical companies will “provide invaluable perspective” to the company’s board of directors. He said Brandicourt’s voice will be important as Alnylam continues to launch Onpattro (patisiran) for the treatment of the polyneuropathy of hereditary transthyretin-mediated (hATTR) amyloidosis in adults. Onpattro was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2018, the first RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutic to be approved. Last year, Alnylam won approval for its second RNAi treatment Givlaari (givosiran). The therapy was approved for acute hepatic porphyria (AHP), a group of ultra-rare, genetic diseases that causes severe abdominal pain and potentially life-threatening attacks.
“We very much look forward to the experience Olivier will bring as we continue to advance innovative RNAi therapeutics intended to transform the lives of patients with serious, and often highly debilitating, conditions,” Maraganore said in a statement.
Brandicourt, who is a physician by training, said he has long admired the science behind Alnylam’s approach to treating disease. He said he looks forward to helping the company build for the future and ensure it is well-positioned to “deliver high impact for patients and significant growth for shareholders.”
Before his work in the pharma industry, Brandicourt worked at the Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris with a focus on malaria research in West and Central Africa. Brandicourt formerly served as chairman of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) board of directors.
In addition to the appointment of Brandicourt, Alnylam announced the retirement of Alnylam co-founder Paul Schimmel from the board of directors upon the conclusion of his current term. Schimmel, is the Hahn Professor of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research and MacArthur Professor Emeritus at MIT. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, American Philosophical Society, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Although he is retiring from the board of directors, Schimmel will continue to serve on the company’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Maraganore said Schimmel and the other Alnylam co-founders had a “bold vision” that RNAi could lead to the development of a new class of medicines.
“With the approvals of Onpattro and Givlaari, and the recently announced positive readouts from pivotal studies of inclisiran and lumasiran, Paul has contributed to a rare event in science and medicine to see that vision realized,” Maraganore said.
