Ionis Pharmaceuticals' affiliate Akcea Therapeutics has announced the immediate departure of its chief executive officer, president and chief operating officer.
Akcea, a biopharma company focused on developing and commercializing drugs to treat patients with serious and rare diseases, quietly announced the unexpected departures of Paula Soteropoulos, CEO, Sarah Boyce, president, and Jeff Goldberg, COO this morning. No explanation was provided to the media.
Akcea's board of directors has appointed Damien McDevitt, Ph.D., a member of its board of directors, as interim chief executive officer, effective immediately. In addition, Michael J. Yang and Joseph ‘Skip’ Klein III have joined the Company’s board of directors.
California-based Ionis Pharma spun out its lipid disorder subsidiary Akcea in 2015. Akcea went public two years later. Akcea is commercializing rare disease treatments Tegsedi, which treats Hereditary ATTR amyloidosis and Waylivra, a treatment for Familial Chylomicronemia Syndromas, well as advancing a mature pipeline of novel drugs with the potential to treat multiple diseases.