Changes at the top of Sarepta, Alkermes, as CEOs depart
Sarepta's Doug Ingram and Alkermes' Richard Pops have both announced their retirement and will step down later this year.
Two long-serving pharma chief executives have announced their departures, as Doug Ingram steps down from Sarepta and Richard Pops plans his retirement from Alkermes.
Ingram has been at the helm of Sarepta since 2017, appointed to the role shortly after the company brought its first exon-skipping Duchenne muscular dystrophy product – Exondys 51 (eteplirsen) – to market. He is planning to retire at the end of the year.
Since then, the company has launched two other exon-skipping therapies – Vyondys 53 (golodirsen) and Amondys 45 (casimersen) – as well as Elevidys (delandistrogene moxeparvovec), the first gene therapy for DMD. When Ingram first took over in 2017, sales were around $155 million, and Sarepta's just-reported 2025 revenues came in at $1.86 billion, including almost $900 million from Elevidys.
2025 was a turbulent year for the company, however, marked by reports of liver toxicity, including some patient deaths, with Elevidys, leading to a temporary pause in distribution. In addition, a clinical trial intended to confirm the efficacy of Vyondys 53 and Amondys 45, and convert their accelerated authorisations into full, permanent approvals, failed to show a statistically significant result.
Ingram has said he is confident that 2026 will be better for the company, with Elevidys set for renewed growth – albeit with a label restricting its use to less sick, ambulatory patients – with five clinical-stage therapies in the pipeline, including gene therapy SRP-9003 (bidridistrogene xeboparvovec) for a type of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy.
Explaining his decision in a conference call, Ingram revealed that the main motivation was the sad news that two of his family members have been diagnosed with myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), another progressive neuromuscular disease and the subject of a Sarepta programme partnered with Arrowhead Pharma in 2024.
Ingram said the "shocking and certainly ironic twist of fate" means that, by the end of this year, "the time will have come for me to spend more time in California focusing on family commitments and addressing the realities of DM1."
The search is now on for a replacement for Ingram, with internal and external candidates under consideration.
Pops decades-long leadership ends
Pops' decision to step down at the end of July, meanwhile, draws a line under 35 years as CEO of Alkermes, although he will remain chair of the board to help the new CEO, chief operating officer Blair Jackson, settle in.
Since joining the company in 1991, when Alkermes was firmly focused on drug delivery platforms, Pops has steered the company through various changes in strategy that eventually crystallised around the development of therapies for central nervous system (CNS) disorders, drawing on technologies that help drugs cross the blood-brain barrier.
The company has brought three drugs to market – schizophrenia and bipolar depression drug Lybalvi (olanzapine/samidorphan), Aristada (aripiprazole) for schizophrenia, and opioid addiction treatment Vivitrol (naltrexone) – which achieved sales of nearly $1.5 billion last year.
Jackson will take over as Alkermes tries to build a position in sleep disorders, on the back of its $2.4 billion acquisition of Avadel Pharma, which gave it rights to Lumryz, an extended-release formulation of the well-established narcolepsy drug sodium oxybate, and its orexin 2 receptor agonist alixorexton which is in phase 2 testing.
"We have built a company with a strong financial foundation, commercial medicines that have reached hundreds of thousands of patients with serious mental illness or addiction, and a compelling opportunity ahead in sleep medicine," said Pops.
"Blair has been a trusted partner to me for many years, and I have great confidence in his leadership as the company builds on its success in the neuroscience space," he added.
