Vir CEO George Scangos to retire, after pandemic success

Vir Biotechnology CEO George Scangos said on Wednesday he will retire, ending an itinerant, nearly 40-year-career as one of biotech’s most recognizable executives.

Scangos, 74, will be succeeded in April by Marianne De Backer, a longtime pharma executive who currently heads pharmaceutical strategy at Bayer. She will inherit a company that rose to prominence during the pandemic by developing the antibody drug sotrovimab and is trying to repeat the success with a series of candidates for Covid and other infectious diseases. 

In an interview, Scangos, noticeably emotional, said his reasons were simple. He had been a biotech CEO, virtually without interruption, since 1996. 

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