Top R&D execs out at AveXis
AveXis said Wednesday that top R&D executives were pushed out of operations in early May and have left the company, the first revelations of employee repercussions after the pharma revealed it knew that data for gene therapy Zolgensma had been manipulated long before it notified FDA.
The Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN) unit said in a statement that CSO and Head of R&D Brian Kaspar and SVP R&D Allan Kaspar have not been involved in any operations at AveXis since early May 2019 and are no longer with the company. Novartis' Page Bouchard has taken over the Kaspar brothers' roles as CSO and SVP of research as of Aug. 5, one day before FDA revealed the data manipulation. Bouchard was global head of preclinical safety for Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR)...