After triumphing in a four-year battle to get Chiasma’s acromegaly pill across the FDA finish line last June, William Ludlam, M.D., Ph.D., is leaving to join Recordati Rare Diseases as chief medical officer.
Ludlam will also take the post of vice president of clinical development, the rare disease biopharma said Wednesday.
The ex-Chiasma and former Novartis medical leader will be responsible for the Italian biopharma’s U.S. and Canada operations. Milan-headquartered Recordati has U.S. operations based in Lebanon, New Jersey.
As senior vice president of clinical development and medical affairs at Chiasma, Ludlam helped the company get its pill for abnormal limb and organ growth approved after the FDA said no nearly four years earlier because of concerns over a pivotal trial design. Mycapssa eventually became the first FDA-approved oral therapy for acromegaly, a rare disorder leading to too much human growth hormone production.
Prior to his perch at Chiasma, Ludlam helmed pituitary work at Novartis as senior medical director for those disorders within the Big Pharma’s rare disease franchise.
Now, he’ll lead the U.S. and Canadian portfolios for Recordati. Ludlam will be responsible for partnering with the medical and scientific communities to expand access to Recordati’s portfolio of rare disease treatments.
That includes Isturisa, a Cushing’s disease treatment given the FDA nod in March 2020. Recordati picked that drug up from, you guessed it, Novartis, as part of the Big Pharma’s $390 million endocrinology offloading in 2019.