Former Eli Lilly Executive Dr. Kerry Blanchard Appointed CEO of Everest Medicines Amid Strategic Shift Toward Early-Stage Drug Development

According to foreign media reports, Dr. Kerry L. Blanchard, former Director of Drug Development in China at Eli Lilly and Company, will assume the role of CEO at Everest Medicines. Dr. Blanchard joins Everest Medicines as an Operating Partner of Qiaoying Capital (Conbridge Capital).

Everest Medicines is dedicated to the development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products for the Greater China region and other Asian markets. C-Bridge Capital (formerly known as C-Bridge Capital) is a private equity firm that established Everest Medicines in 2017. Prior to this, Dr. Bo Kerui was involved in the research and development of sintilimab, a PD-1 antibody developed by Innovent Biologics. During his 17-year career at Eli Lilly and Company, Dr. Bo spent eight years working on drug development in China.

Since its inception, Everest Medicines has entered into a series of licensing agreements. In February 2018, the company secured the rights to develop and commercialize eravacycline, a novel fully synthetic fluorocycline antibiotic from Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, in Greater China, South Korea, and Singapore. Subsequently, in June 2018, it obtained the global rights to develop and commercialize FGF401, a novel fibroblast growth factor receptor 4 (FGFR4) kinase inhibitor candidate from Novartis. Notably, in April 2019, the company signed a licensing agreement valued at $835 million with ImmunoMedics (Nasdaq: IMMU), granting it exclusive rights to develop and commercialize sacituzumab govitecan, a novel breast cancer drug from ImmunoMedics, in Greater China, South Korea, and certain other ASEAN countries.

According to the report, Ian Woo, President and Chief Financial Officer of Everest Medicines, plans to transform the company’s business development model. “In the near future, the company will fully leverage China’s extensive clinical resources to expand its scope to include earlier stages of development. The long-term goal is to create sustainable value by enhancing drug discovery capabilities.”