After six months of searching for its next chief executive, Washington’s largest biotech firm has found its match. On Thursday, Seagen named David R. Epstein as CEO.
David R. Epstein, CEO of Seagen/courtesy Bloomberg/Getty Images
After six months of searching for its next chief executive, Washington’s largest biotech firm has found its match. On Thursday, Seagen named David R. Epstein as CEO.
He fills the opening left by Seagen’s co-founder, Clay Siegall, who stepped down in May after a publicized arrest and allegations of domestic violence.
Epstein brings with him decades of biopharma experience, including a quarter century at Novartis. He built Novartis’ oncology business from the ground up and served as CEO of the pharmaceuticals division for six years. For the past five years, he worked as an executive partner for Flagship Pioneering, taking on director roles at a handful of startups.
After 25 years at the company, Siegall had been Washington’s highest-paid CEO. He didn’t leave empty-handed. Seagen’s generous severance package granted him 1.5 times his annual salary and bonus.
Epstein will lead Seagen to the next level with his “experience in both large multi-faceted organizations and small biotechnology startups, combined with deep oncology knowledge,” said Felix Baker, Seagen’s Chair of the Board, in a statement.
Roger Dansey had stepped up as the company’s interim CEO. He will now return to his role of CMO, with the additional title of president of R&D. Drawing on his oncology experience at Merck, Gilead and Amgen, Dansey will now focus on strengthening Seagen’s early research efforts.
Seagen already has four cancer drugs on the market, three of which utilize antibody-drug conjugate technology. The biotech has over a dozen more candidates in the pipeline, with over nine clinical trials already to Phase III. Targets range from lymphoma to bladder to breast cancers and more.
This summer brought a deal to the table that would be the biopharma world’s largest since 2020 – a potentially $40 billion acquisition of Seagen from pharma giant Merck. The merger has since stalled over a failure to agree on price.
In September, the FDA granted a Priority Review to the supplemental NDA for a combo of TUKYSA and trastuzumab for HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer. Currently, no therapies are approved for this type of cancer that specifically target HER2. The FDA set a target action date of Jan. 19, 2023.
In the meantime, Epstein will continue to drive the pipeline forward along with Seagen’s “science-driven, patient-first culture.”
