Dive Brief:<\/p>\n
David Altshuler, the renowned geneticist who\u2019s helped shape Vertex Pharmaceuticals\u2019 research strategy over the last decade, will step down next year, the company said Monday.
\nAlongside its quarterly earnings report, Vertex said Altshuler, the company\u2019s chief scientific officer, will retire on Aug. 1, 2026 as part of a \u201cplanned transition.\u201d Mark Bunnage, Vertex\u2019s senior vice president of global research, will assume Altshuler\u2019s role on Feb. 1. He\u2019s worked alongside Altshuler since 2016 and has run discovery research at Vertex since March 2024, the company said.
\nAltshuler was named to Vertex\u2019s board of directors in 2012 and officially hired to lead its internal and external research efforts three years later. Since then, the company has branched out from its core cystic fibrosis business and brought to market the first CRISPR gene editing therapy as well as a new kind of pain medicine. \u201cI would like to express my deep gratitude to David for his exceptional scientific vision and patient impact,\u201d CEO Reshma Kewalrami said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Dive Insight:<\/p>\n
When Altshuler joined Vertex in 2015, he stepped into a company still scarred by a near-catastrophic setback.<\/p>\n
While Vertex had a pair of fast-selling cystic fibrosis drugs at the time, it was only a few years removed from the collapse of a once-budding hepatitis C business. Company executives attributed the business\u2019 fall to underestimating the competition and not diversifying quickly enough<\/a>. They vowed to plan better in the future.<\/p>\n Altshuler was tasked with leading that plan. A founding member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and leader of several important genetic research studies, Altshuler sought to work on conditions caused by easily identifiable genetic mutations. The idea was to do so within certain \u201cspecialty diseases\u201d \u2014 typically rare disorders for which medicines can be sold at high prices and with a small sales force. Vertex would iteratively test several similar drugs for these conditions, hoping to find medicines that stand out and then improve upon them.<\/p>\n \u201cDisproportionate value is created when you actually open a disease,\u201d Altshuler said in an interview in 2021, contrasting the company\u2019s approach with the more typical strategy of pursuing many programs within a broad therapeutic area.<\/p>\n Vertex\u2019s strategy drew skepticism from Wall Street investors<\/a> over the years. But it cemented a cystic fibrosis business that\u2019s produced five drugs and withstood multiple challenges. It also saw Vertex branch out into other areas. A partnership with CRISPR Therapeutics yielded the gene-editing blood disease drug Casgevy, which was approved by regulators in 2023. Long-running pain research led to the clearance of Journavx<\/a>, an alternative to opioids, in January. Vertex\u2019s market value has more tripled since Altshuler came aboard.<\/p>\n Yet it\u2019s still not clear whether Vertex has found a second drug franchise. Casgevy\u2019s launch is going slow, and Vertex\u2019s pain medications may not become the multibillion-dollar business it envisioned. The company has shelved multiple attempts at drugs for the rare disease alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, as well as one of two diabetes cell therapy programs in clinical development. A yearslong collaboration with Moderna hasn\u2019t yet borne fruit.<\/p>\n