Orchard Therapeutics has tasked Robin Kenselaar with accelerating growth of Lenmeldy, the world’s most expensive drug, promoting him to chief commercial officer after a year in which sales of the gene therapy fell short of expectations. Kenselaar is filling a gap created when Braden Parker left Orchard last year.
Kyowa Kirin acquired Orchard early in January 2024. Two months later, Orchard won FDA approval for its gene therapy in the treatment of early-onset metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD). Kyowa targeted Lenmeldy revenues of 4.9 billion yen ($31.7 million) in 2024, but only made it two-thirds of the way to its goal. This year, Kyowa has upped its ambition, targeting full-year sales of 6.9 billion yen across Europe and the U.S.
Enter Kenselaar. Orchard’s newly minted chief commercial officer joined the company in 2018 when he ended a 14-year spell at Sanofi and its Genzyme unit to lead Orchard’s commercialization strategy and execution in Europe. In his new role, Kenselaar will oversee commercial strategy and planning globally.
Frank Thomas, chief operating officer at Orchard, set out why Kenselaar is the right person for the job in a statement, explaining that the newest member of the biotech’s C-suite “has a wealth of experience and a strong track record of successfully launching rare disease therapies.” That experience includes getting Lenmeldy off the ground in Europe, where Orchard has sold the gene therapy as Libmeldy since 2020.
“He is an ideal candidate to continue building our commercial team, infrastructure and capabilities as we look to accelerate growth in the U.S. and Europe while exploring future potential regulatory approvals in other regions and territories for MLD and the rest of our portfolio,” Thomas said.
Kyowa provided an update on the U.S. launch this week as part of its fourth-quarter results. While the company identified potential recipients of Lenmeldy last year, ultimately the individuals’ symptoms were too advanced for them to be eligible for treatment. Orchard treated its first patient in the U.S. last month but said it may need newborn screening to become more common to get a steady stream of eligible patients.
Illinois is the only U.S. state to include metachromatic leukodystrophy in newborn screening. Securing a federal screening recommendation would help identify more people while they are eligible for treatment with Lenmeldy. Then, Orchard and Kyowa could focus their energies on ensuring people who are eligible for treatment can access the $4.25 million gene therapy.
Orchard has firsthand experience of how hard it can be to sell expensive gene therapies. The biotech acquired GSK’s Strimvelis in 2018—when the gene therapy was two years into a glacial launch—and gave up on the product four years later. Italian charity Fondazione Telethon took over the asset in 2023.