BenevolentAI’s CEO Joerg Moeller is stepping down effective immediately, the London biotech said Thursday, in the latest leadership shakeup atop the company.
Since going public in early 2022 via a SPAC, BenevolentAI’s stock price has fallen over 90%. Its lead drug candidate fell short in a mid-stage eczema study last year, eventually leading to the program’s discontinuation. Moeller, formerly the global R&D head of Leo Pharma, was brought in to replace former CEO Joanna Shields in January.
Now, less than 10 months into his tenure, BenevolentAI announced Moeller is headed out the door. The company didn’t give a reason for his exit, other than to say it was “immediate.”
The company also didn’t name a replacement, though it did say that founder Ken Mulvany is now executive chairman. Mulvany rejoined BenevolentAI’s board in May, amid a broader boardroom battle.
Ken MulvanyIn a Thursday statement, Mulvany said the company has “only scratched the surface of our platform’s incredible potential.”
Founded in 2013, BenevolentAI was one of the first biotech startups focused on artificial intelligence, alongside peers like Exscientia, Recursion Pharmaceuticals and Atomwise. Benevolent had pitched its AI approach as allowing it to slash preclinical costs and move faster.
In its pitch to investors when it was going public via a SPAC, the biotech shared projections that its pipeline would grow from 12 programs in 2021 to more than 50 in 2026, eventually reaching 87 in 2030. It said its aim was to file one to two INDs per year for the next few years, increasing to a rate of two to three IND filings per year for 2027 to 2031.
But those bold forecasts haven’t panned out. Today, BenevolentAI’s pipeline lists one program in the clinic and eight preclinical programs. It has slashed R&D and overall spending plans, including rounds of layoffs last May and this April. The company’s sole clinical-stage drug reported positive results from a healthy volunteer Phase 1 study earlier this year. And the company said last month it is in active out-licensing and partnership discussions around that molecule.
BenevolentAI’s struggles are in line with several of its peers who have pitched R&D revolutions with their technology over the past decade. But the lead drug candidates from these AI-focused biotechs have fallen short in the clinic.
Several of these original AI-focused biotechs have struggled to survive. Exscientia recently agreed to a merger deal with Recursion. Atomwise’s founding CEO Abe Heifets quietly left the company earlier this year with no announced successor, Endpoints News previously reported.