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Andrew Bellinger, the chief scientific officer of Verve Therapeutics, is stepping down from his role effective June 21, according to a Friday announcement. Bellinger has served as Verve's CSO since 2019 and will move to an advisory role. Troy Lister, currently senior vice president of research and early development, will take Bellinger's place. In a statement on X, Bellinger said “it has been an honor” to serve as the company's first CSO, adding that he felt it was the “right time” for him to move on to other opportunities. — Delilah Alvarado Summit Therapeutics, a biotechnology company based in Miami, Florida, on Thursday said that a bispecific antibody it’s developing beat Merck & Co.’s Keytruda in a head-to-head study of people with non-small cell lung cancer. According to Summit, its drug, ivonescimab, significantly improved progression-free survival versus Keytruda across clinical subgroups. However, the company did not disclose any data and the trial was conducted solely in China. Regulators in the U.S. have previously sought evidence that single-country trials are reproducible in different demographic groups. — Ned Pagliarulo Kevin Gorman, the founder and longtime leader of Neurocrine Biosciences, is retiring later this year after 16 years as the company’s CEO. He’ll be replaced by Kyle Gano, another Neurocrine veteran who has served as chief business development and strategy officer since 2020. NeurocrineNeurocrine has grown significantly with Gorman at the helm, developing and launching the rare disease drug Ingrezza. — Ned Pagliarulo