McKinsey alums Santos da Silva, Bodenstedt join MoonLake; plus Takeda, Plexxikon, Solid, EQRx, Cardior and more
Two months after Merck KGaA (Xetra:MRK) teamed up with BVF Partners to launch MoonLake Immunotherapeutics AG, the newco has hired McKinsey veterans Jorge Santos da Silva as CEO and Matthias Bodenstedt as CFO. The executives will join co-founders Arnout Ploos van Amstel, who is COO, and Kristian Reich, CSO. As a senior partner at McKinsey in the Zurich office, Santos da Silva was a leader in the firm’s pharmaceutical and medical products practice, heading the biotech and biosimilars groups. Bodenstedt, a McKinsey partner whose clients ranged from pre-revenue to global pharma, specializes in finance and commercial strategy for biopharmas.
MoonLake has worldwide rights to Merck’s sonelokinab, an IL-17A/F targeted Nanobody that the German pharma gained through a 2013 deal with Ablynx N.V...