Dive Brief:
- Philip Dormitzer, a top Pfizer scientist who helped develop the company's widely used COVID-19 shot, will leave the pharmaceutical giant next month for a job running rival GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine research and development.
- Dormitzer, an executive at Pfizer since 2015 and previously Novartis' head of U.S. vaccine research, will report to GSK's R&D chief Hal Barron, the British drugmaker said in a Tuesday statement. His first day as GSK's global head of vaccine R&D is Dec. 3.
- In addition to his work on Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, Dormitzer led development of the company's vaccine candidates for respiratory syncytial virus infection, now in late-stage testing, and an influenza vaccine being advanced in collaboration with Pfizer's partner BioNTech.
Dive Insight:
Dormitzer's hire is notable for GSK, historically one of the world's largest vaccine makers but a minor player in the industry's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than develop its own shot, GSK instead provided adjuvants, immune-boosting complements to vaccines, to several companies, including Sanofi and Medicago.
The former partnership was, in the summer of 2020, a leading effort to develop an effective vaccine for COVID-19. Anticipating a high likelihood of success, the U.S. government pledged more than $2 billion to support the companies' work. But early clinical trial results for the vaccine were so disappointing Sanofi and GSK scrapped the candidate last December and redesigned another that's now in Phase 3 testing.
At the same time as GSK was falling behind companies like Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna in COVID-19 vaccine development, the company lost several dozen employees from its vaccine R&D center in Rockville, Maryland, Business Insider reported in April.
Setbacks notwithstanding, GSK's vaccine business remains large and profitable, with the company's shingles vaccine a top-seller. Dormitzer will take over responsibility for a unit that aims to launch five new vaccines by 2026, including candidates in areas like RSV that he is familiar with.
His experience with Pfizer's development of messenger RNA technology for COVID-19 will also be valuable, as GSK, like others in the industry, sees mRNA vaccines becoming more important in the future.
"The importance of vaccines has never been clearer, and the pace of technological innovation has rarely been greater," Barron said in a statement on the hire. "GSK has an industry-leading pipeline of vaccines and Phil's scientific expertise and significant experience with key innovative technologies, such as mRNA, structure-based antigen design and synthetic biology, will be key to ensuring we remain a leader in this field."
GSK is already working with CureVac, a German biotech that developed an mRNA COVID-19 shot but later withdrew its application for approval in Europe. The companies are partnered on a second-generation version of that vaccine, as well as on other infectious disease research.