The Covid-19 pandemic hit home for the biotechnology community earlier this month when Biogen disclosed that it had suffered an outbreak connected with a management meeting in Boston. Now, the CEOs of two additional biotech companies have also come down with the virus.
On Friday evening, Allogene CEO Arie Belldegrun posted a statement on Twitter stating that he had contracted the virus. And on Sunday, CEO Cedric Francois of Waltham, Massachusetts-based Apellis wrote in a post on his LinkedIn page that he too had tested positive.
The statement said that Belldegrun had made a decision to self-quarantine after experiencing “a minimal dry cough and transient low-grade fever,” but that it was unknown where he may have come into contact with the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2. He further wrote that three other employees of South San Francisco, California-based Allogene had been in direct contact with him in the past two weeks and had decided to self-quarantine as well despite not experiencing any symptoms as a precaution following their participation in a “recent banking conference.”
Belldegrun hoped to use his experience to raise awareness.
“As a physician, Dr. Belldegrun felt it was important to issue this statement in recognition that this can happen to anyone and to help destigmatize exposure,” the statement read. “He wants to encourage people to monitor updates from public health officials and seek testing should they begin to develop symptoms.”
In an emailed statement, Allogene spokesperson Christine Cassiano wrote that the banking conference Belldegrun referred to was a healthcare conference sponsored by investment bank Cowen, at the Boston Marriott Copley Square, which Belldegrun and the three executives attended on March 2. However, she added, the three other executives who attended remain symptom-free.
Executives from Biogen had reportedly attended the conference the same day, including those who subsequently tested positive for the virus. Biogen subsequently notified Cowen, which notified attendees of the conference.
In his statement, Francois wrote that he began experiencing symptoms last Wednesday and subsequently discovered he was positive for SARS-CoV-2 after being tested. While he had not been in Apellis’ office since March 3 – making direct contact with other office employees unlikely – he wrote that he learned on March 8 he was “in the same building as infected individuals” a few days before, leading him to self-quarantine in his apartment. Citing a company spokesperson, the Boston Globe reported that he had been referring to the Cowen conference; Francois had been at the hotel on March 4, two days after the Biogen executives.
“Like others, I thought it would be good to be open about this and to show my gratitude,” Francois wrote.
Belldegrun is one of the cofounders of Allogene, which is developing allogeneic or “off-the-shelf” CAR-T cell therapies made with donor cells rather than patients’ own cells. He was also founder of Kite Pharma, which developed the marketed CAR-T therapy Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) and was bought by Gilead Sciences in August 2017 for $11.9 billion. Apellis is developing drugs in ophthalmology, hematology and nephrology, as well as for preventing patients’ immune systems from attacking the viral vectors used in gene therapies.
Biogen, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said March 6 that it had directed all 175 attendees of its management meeting – which took place in late February at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel – to self-quarantine after several attendees tested positive for the Covid-19 virus.
As of Monday, more than 169,000 people worldwide had become infected with the virus, and more than 6,500 had died, according to an interactive map maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
Photo: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
