Spark Therapeutics Announces Departure of CEO and Founder Jeff Marrazzo; COO Ron Philip Named as Successor
Spark Therapeutics, a member of the Roche Group, announced that Ron Philip, Spark’s chief operating officer, will succeed co-founder Jeffrey D. Marrazzo as chief executive officer. Mr. Marrazzo, who co-founded the company in 2013, will step down on April 1.
“When I think about Spark’s future, I’ve long viewed Ron as the next person to take over at the helm—not only is he a steadfast leader, he’s been instrumental in developing Spark’s gene therapy pipeline and has a deep understanding of Spark’s unique culture,” Mr. Marrazzo said in a company news release. “I am incredibly proud of what we’ve built at Spark: from my first meetings in 2011, when the company was merely an idea, to now as the gene therapy center of excellence at one of the largest healthcare companies in the world. I’ve had the remarkable privilege to be part of an incredible team and work on cutting-edge science that has the potential to change people’s lives. Under Ron’s leadership, I know that Spark is well-positioned to deliver on the full promise of gene therapy.”
As co-founder and CEO of Spark, Mr. Marrazzo created a fully integrated, commercial gene therapy company that successfully delivered to patients the world’s first gene therapy approved by both the FDA and EMA, while also discovering and developing potential treatments and cures for inherited retinal disease and rare bleeding and neuromuscular disorders. Over the course of a decade, he led Spark’s transition from a research center within the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to a private, venture-backed start-up and a publicly traded biotechnology company, and, most recently, an independent operating unit within Roche.
As Spark’s COO, Mr. Philip led the oversight and delivery of research, development, manufacturing and commercial efforts on the company’s pipeline assets. Most notably, he directed the development and commercial launch of Spark’s first approved gene therapy, Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl).