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LONDON, Jan 19 (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline's chief
scientific officer Hal Barron is leaving in August, the British
drugmaker said on Wednesday, moving to run a new privately-owned
biotech start-up.
Barron's landmark deals since joining GSK in January 2018
have included a 2019 research alliance on gene-editing with a
group of researchers led by Nobel prize laureate Jennifer
Doudna, a co-inventor of the CRISPR gene-editing technology.
GSK said Tony Wood will become CSO designate and assume full
accountability for Research and Development (R&D) on Aug. 1,
adding that Barron will become a GSK non-executive director on
that date, with additional responsibilities to support R&D.
Barron is joining Altos Labs, a new biotech based in San
Francisco, California, focused on the biology of cellular
rejuvenation programming with the goal of reversing disease.
While at GSK, Barron also agreed a 2018 collaboration deal
with DNA testing firm 23andMe to develop new therapies,
which was extended by a year this month.
His exit is the latest change of a senior scientist at a
drugmaker as the pandemic enters its third year.
In December, the British drugmaker hired one of the
scientists behind Pfizer's mRNA COVID-19 shot, Phil Dormitzer,
as its global head of R&D for vaccines.
Johnson & Johnson's CSO Paul Stoffels, who
spearheaded the development of the company's single-shot
COVID-19 vaccine, retired at the end of last year.
(Reporting by Josephine Mason; Additional reporting by Ludwig
Burger in Frankfurt; Editing by Jason Neely and Alexander Smith)