Less than two years after snapping up the chief commercial role at Moderna, Arpa Garay is stepping aside amid a shake-up in the Big Biotech’s commercial unit.
Moderna, a long-time biotech unicorn with early-stage cancer and infectious disease assets, shot onto the world stage in 2020 with the approval of its mRNA vaccine.
But after initially making tens of billions of pandemic dollars, its star has dimmed as sales dried up.
The company has this year however been plugging the depth of its pipeline, which is made up of other infectious disease hopefuls, cancer vaccines and combo cancer agents.
Last April, Moderna poached Arpa Garay from her role as Merck’s long-term portfolio strategy and global marketing lead to become Moderna’s new chief commercial officer (CCO), as it looked to a future beyond being just a COVID company.
That future will now however not involve Garay who, in an unusual move, steps aside from the CCO role, but remains a staffer at Moderna for the “coming months,” according to a press release. She'll also help as an advisor before leaving the company sometime next year.
There appears to be no plans to replace the role itself, as the executive team will simply subsume her position.
In her place steps in Stephen Hoge, M.D., Moderna’s president, who will assume responsibility for pipeline commercial strategy, as well as medical affairs. Stephane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO, will take on sales and marketing for the company in 2024, working directly with the commercial team.
In its short release, Moderna said it was “focused on driving continued sales of its COVID-19 vaccine” but also needed to make these changes as it looks to launch its new RSV vaccine next year, where it will compete with GSK and Pfizer, “while also preparing to launch multiple products per year from 2025 forward.”
This has led it “to increase executive focus” on its commercial work.
“We made significant progress in 2023 and are excited about the year ahead as we focus on driving continued sales in 2024 and 2025,” Bancel said in a statement.
“I am grateful for Arpa's leadership and for her help in establishing a strong commercial foundation," Bancel added. "Our strategy is clear, our pipeline continues to be highly productive, and we will remain focused on execution.”
This comes as Pfizer, also a major COVID player whose sales have dramatically fallen, saw its long-term CCO Angela Hwang, who has been at Pfizer 27 years including the last five as chief commercial officer, also decide to leave the Big Pharma.