Sarepta appoints former AbbVie executive Michael Severino as new CEO to drive turnaround

Sarepta Therapeutics announced that Michael Severino will become its chief executive officer on July 28, succeeding Doug Ingram who plans to retire.

Severino brings more than two decades of experience in the biopharma sector, including senior roles at AbbVie where he helped launch drugs for psoriasis, arthritis, cancer and hepatitis C, and at Amgen as senior vice president of development and chief medical officer.

Before joining Sarepta, he led the gene-editing startup Tessera Therapeutics, which recently advanced its first candidate for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency into clinical testing.

The board hopes his background in both large companies and biotech startups will help reverse the recent decline in Sarepta’s market value and address growing competition to its gene therapy Elevidys.