The CEO of the Biotech Innovation Organization (BIO), one of the top lobbying groups for the biopharma industry, is on leave amid internal dissent over her leadership, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper reported that BIO CEO Michelle McMurry-Heath clashed with board members on “multiple fronts” including whether or not the organization should wade into issues outside of biotech. The sources also said that some board members have taken issue with her performance and management style. The report notes that McMurry-Heath is now under a performance review.
Spokespeople for BIO did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation that McMurry-Heath is on leave and for further comment on the substance of the article.
Tapped for the role in May 2020, the Johnson & Johnson alum has led the organization through an especially tumultuous period, not the least of which included the COVID-19 pandemic. The lobbying group also took one on the regulatory chin in August when the Inflation Reduction Act was made law, cementing the most consequential drug pricing legislation in years. BIO, and biotechs large and small, decried the legislation as stymieing innovation.
“Its passage today has built new barriers to battling current and future deadly pandemics, health inequality and finding treatments for rare and hard-to-treat diseases,” McMurry-Heath said in a statement after the bill passed the Senate.
Before joining BIO, McMurry-Heath spent more than five years at Johnson & Johnson, three of which were as worldwide vice president of regulatory and clinical affairs. Prior to that, she was the associate director for science at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. She had reportedly been rumored to be a candidate to run the agency but downplayed the speculation in a June 2021 interview with Stat.
“I have tremendous respect for what the FDA tackles and what the FDA commissioner goes through, but I am not out there looking for another job. I love what we are doing at BIO,” she said.