Gilead Sciences has raided Sanofi for its next chief medical officer, luring Dietmar Berger, M.D., Ph.D., away from the French drugmaker to replace Merdad Parsey, M.D., Ph.D. The appointment reunites Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day with a key member of the oncology team from his time at Roche.
Berger has spent the past five years at Sanofi. The company originally appointed Berger as global head of development but soon added CMO to his title. Berger temporarily took on extra responsibilities when John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., left Sanofi last year, leading the R&D team until the drugmaker hired Houman Ashrafian to fill the vacancy.
The Sanofi roles gave Berger responsibility for all therapeutic areas, but the executive cut his teeth—and crossed paths with O’Day—as a cancer specialist. Berger held roles at Genentech’s cancer operation from 2011 to 2018, including four years as senior vice president of global clinical development in oncology and hematology.
Berger’s time at Genentech overlapped with the crescendo of O’Day’s long career at the Big Biotech’s parent company, Roche. O’Day was chief operating officer or CEO of Roche’s pharma unit for most of the years Berger spent at Genentech. While O’Day and Berger were both at the company, Roche won FDA approval for the cancer drugs Alecensa, Cotellic, Gazyva, Kadcyla and Tecentriq.
Berger specialized in cancer long before joining Genentech, holding oncology global clinical development roles at Amgen and Bayer earlier in his career. Gilead highlighted Berger’s “impressive track record of successful global filings, including multiple cancer treatments” in a statement to reveal the appointment.
Gilead’s virology products account for most of the company’s revenues, with oncology contributing $816 million out of $6.8 billion in the third quarter, but the Big Biotech’s pipeline skews toward cancer. O’Day arrived at Gilead with a remit to grow the oncology business, leading to deals such as the acquisitions of Immunomedics and Forty Seven. Cancer accounts for more than half of Gilead’s clinical-phase pipeline.
After costly setbacks, O’Day needs the cancer pipeline to deliver to drive the long-awaited blossoming of a major oncology business at Gilead. Berger is taking responsibility for overseeing the work from Parsey. Gilead revealed Parsey’s intention to leave the company in July. The plan was for the outgoing CMO to stick around until the first quarter of 2025 and support the transition. Berger will arrive Jan. 2.
The appointment creates a gap in Sanofi’s C-suite at a time when the French drugmaker is closing in on a series of phase 2 and 3 data drops as well as regulatory submissions and decisions. The list of phase 3 Sanofi readouts scheduled for 2025 includes tolebrutinib in primary progressive multiple sclerosis and itepekimab in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.