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A Pfizer partner welcomes ex-ADC Therapeutics CMO Jay Feingold to the team; Amid tough sledding, Immunovant chooses Eli Lilly alum as CFO

Jay Feingold
→ Last week we told you about the CMO revolving door at ADC Therapeutics, as Joseph Camardo replaced the departing Jay Feingold. The next opportunity for Feingold in the CMO slot has opened up at antibody-drug conjugate and mAb developer…

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Jay Feingold

→ Last week we told you about the CMO revolving door at ADC Therapeutics, as Joseph Camardo replaced the departing Jay Feingold. The next opportunity for Feingold in the CMO slot has opened up at antibody-drug conjugate and mAb developer Pyxis Oncology, which has added several new execs and scientific advisory board members in recent months, including ex-Immunovant CFO Pamela Yanchik Connealy. Before his tenure at ADC, Feingold was Daiichi Sankyo’s VP of US medical affairs and chairman of the Global Medical Affairs Oversight Committee. Within weeks in March, Pyxis struck a licensing deal with Pfizer for two of its ADCs and raked in $152 million from a Series B round.

Renee Barnett

→ Meanwhile, Immunovant has found Connealy’s replacement, selecting Renee Barnett as finance chief a month after Roivant decided to pump $200 million into a member of Vivek Ramaswamy’s Vant family that has wrestled with trial suspensions and freefalling stocks. Until now the chief integration officer at telemental health provider AbleTo, Barnett has spent a large portion of her career at Eli Lilly, rising to CFO of Austria & Switzerland and later director of financial planning & analysis. LDL levels (the bad cholesterol) shot up considerably in patients on the high and low doses of Immunovant’s antibody IMVT-1401 for thyroid eye disease in February, and new data in June did little to quell concerns even as Immunovant also forges ahead with IMVT-1401 in myasthenia gravis and warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia (WAIHA).

Andrew Pecora

→ Robert Hariri has a new president working alongside him at New Jersey-based Celularity, another biotech that chose the SPAC route to gallop into Nasdaq — doing so here with GX Acquisition Corp. A hematologist and oncologist, Andrew Pecora was president of the Physician Enterprise and chief innovation officer at Hackensack Meridian Health, and he co-founded, chaired and helmed Progenitor Cell Therapy. When the merger closed in July, Hariri told our Amber Tong that Celularity had waved the white flag on its Covid-19 efforts with its NK cell therapy approach: “The change in management of patients at the hospital setting made it very very difficult to find patients who met the inclusion criteria,” he said.

Jesse Hall

→ One month separates big hires at San Francisco’s AltruBio, with Jesse Hall joining Judy Chou’s squad as CMO following the introduction of CFO Jeroen Grasman in early August. Since 2018, Hall was CMO for Sublimity Therapeutics before taking on the same role at AltruBio, which brought in a $63 million Series A haul in the spring and has a Phase Ib study underway for graft-versus-host disease with its lead drug neihulizumab. From 2009-13, Hall was a medical director at Amgen before becoming an executive medical director at Ardea Biosciences.

Ingrid Simms

→ San Diego precision oncology biotech Lengo Therapeutics — where Dave Johnson and Enoch Kariuki have reunited as chairman and CEO respectively after their VelosBio days — has three new execs on the roster, including another familiar face. Ingrid Simms (SVP and principal accounting officer) held the same title at VelosBio and from 2013-20 was the VP of finance for Alder BioPharmaceuticals. Paul Pearson (chief of development) was executive director of preclinical drug metabolism during his years at Merck Research Laboratories, and later became Amgen’s global head of pharmacokinetics and drug metabolism. And the 11 years at Pfizer’s La Jolla Laboratories for Eric Gruff (SVP of CMC) culminated in his role as research team leader in development of diabetes and frailty (muscle wasting) therapies.

→ By raising a substantial chunk of change for its Series B in August, Jeffrey Bluestone’s Sonoma Biotherapeutics has 265 million reasons to grab everyone’s attention, and this week Sonoma has pulled in Doug Sheehy as chief legal officer and secretary. The ex-general counsel and secretary at Aimmune, Sheehy also devoted nine years to Codexis, where he was EVP, chief administrative officer, general counsel and secretary.

Gudarz Davar

→ CNS disease-focused Autobahn Therapeutics out of San Diego, lifting the lid in June 2020 with a $76 million round headlined by ARCH and Cowen, has tapped Gudarz Davar as CMO and promoted Chan Beals to SVP, chief of translational medicine. Davar — who can sing his own verses of Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” with stints at Amgen, Allergan and Biogen under his belt — just led R&D for a year at Acadia Pharmaceuticals after he was in charge of global neurology clinical development at Eli Lilly. Beals sped into Autobahn in January 2020 as SVP of translational medicine, and earlier he was CMO at Abide Therapeutics, which Lundbeck bought to boost a scuffling pipeline in the spring of 2019.

Sunjeet Sawhney

→ Novo Seeds led a modest financing round in October 2020 for Finnish cancer startup Rappta Therapeutics, focused on protein phosphatase 2 (PP2A) inhibitors. Founding CEO Mikko Mannerkoski is sliding into the CFO role at Rappta as Sunjeet Sawhney steps into the spotlight in his place, effective immediately. Sawhney hails from Ipsen, where the new chief executive was global head of the oncology franchise, and his Big Pharma experience started early at Roche and Sanofi before rising to oncology head of marketing & commercial excellence, emerging growth markets to conclude his nine years at Novartis Oncology.

→ Starting Monday, Erik Skullerud will be CEO at Oslo, Norway-based Nordic Nanovector, which takes aim at hematological cancers with its radioimmunoconjugate (RIC) Betalutin. Skullerud succeeds Malene Brondberg after she had held the top spot on an interim basis since July. From 2000-16, Skullerud scaled the sales and marketing peaks at Amgen, leaving as the Big Pharma’s marketing director, Europe, oncology/hematology.

Lars Boesgaard

→ Staying in Europe, Dutch biotech AM-Pharma has brought on Lars Boesgaard to be its CFO. The first AM-Pharma executive to be based in the US, the Novo Nordisk and Alexion vet joins the company from Columbia Care just a week after Kyowa Kirin paid the biotech more than $23 million upfront for development and commercialization rights in Japan on kidney drug ilofotase alfa.

Timothy Kieffer

→ Proof-of-concept data from a single patient were released in June from ViaCyte’s stem cell treatment for type 1 diabetes, and CEO Michael Yang has found a new CSO with the requisite stem cell background in this indication. Timothy Kieffer was in charge of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Medicine at the University of British Columbia, where he was also part of the Diabetes Research Group at the school’s Life Sciences Institute. The enGene co-founder replaces Kevin D’Amour, now the chief scientist at Brooklyn ImmunoTherapeutics.

Ian Clark

→ Kyverna Therapeutics has recruited two new faces with the appointments of former Genentech CEO Ian Clark as chair of its board of directors and Karen Walker as chief technology officer. Prior to his seven-year tenure at the helm of Genentech, Clark was serving as the company’s EVP of commercial operations and SVP and general manager of bio-oncology. Earlier in his career, Clark served in a variety of roles at Novartis, Sanofi, Ivax and Searle. This is far from Clark’s first board seat; he currently sits on the boards of Takeda, Agios Pharmaceuticals, Guardant Health, Olema Pharmaceuticals, Corvus Pharmaceuticals and Avrobio.

Meanwhile, Walker comes to Kyverna after stints at Roche/Genentech, Seagen, Novartis, Amgen, Bayer and Bristol Myers Squibb. Walker most recently served as senior advisor, cell and gene therapy manufacturing at Roche/Genentech.

→ Founded by Bob Langer and heading into Phase III with its lead drug for chronic rhinosinusitis, Lyra Therapeutics has locked in Jason Cavalier as CFO. After stops at Bear Stearns, Barclays and RBC Capital Markets, Cavalier was Cantor Fitzgerald’s managing director, head of life sciences mergers & acquisitions.

Han Lee

→ Han Lee will depart from his CFO position at Arcellx to perform the same role at Neogene Therapeutics. Prior to Arcellx, Lee served as senior director in the corporate development and ventures group at AstraZeneca. Over the summer, the Southern California TCR biotech also added Brent Pfeiffenberger as COO.

→ David Liebowitz is stepping over to Houston-based DNAtrix as CMO. Liebowitz most recently served as VP of clinical oncology at Xencor. Prior to that stint, Liebowitz was the CMO for Vaxart and CSO and CMO of Vivaldi Biosciences. Earlier in his career, Liebowitz was with Galileo Pharmaceuticals, Amgen and Immunex.

Jaa Roberson

→ The sun shone brightly over South San Francisco pediatric cancer player Day One Biopharmaceuticals when it started trading on Nasdaq with the ticker $DAWN after an upsized IPO hit $160 million in May. CEO Jeremy Bender continues to piece together the C-suite with Jaa Roberson climbing on board as chief people officer, pivoting from her role as a human resources exec at Bellicum. After six years at Genentech as an HR business partner, Roberson spent a year leading HR at Achaogen.

John Limongelli

→ Thomas Jefferson University spinout Imvax, led by ex-Spark COO John Furey, has locked in John Limongelli as chief legal officer. Limongelli was general counsel at Neos Therapeutics and then at Travena, where he tacked on the chief administrative officer title. Imvax revealed positive Phase Ib data on its glioblastoma multiforme drug IGV-001 in January and has brought COO Sean Hemingway and CFO Josh Muntner into the fold this year.

→ Pittsburgh’s Krystal Biotech has added Laurent Goux as their general manager for Europe. Goux comes from Swiss dermatological pharma Galderma, where he was in charge of global strategic marketing and market access. Krystal Biotech is in the middle of a Phase III trial for epidermolysis bullosa.

→ NeuBase Therapeutics resurfaces in Peer Review yet again, as the Pittsburgh genetic medicine biotech waves in Anthony Rossomando as chief technology officer. A staff scientist at Bayer in the 1990s, Rossomando has roamed the landscape extensively, from his nine years at Biogen to his three years at Alnylam as senior director of siRNA bioprocessing. The Anokion and Alexion vet heads to NeuBase after a brief stay as chief process development officer at Pinetree Therapeutics. Within a year’s time, NeuBase has also bolstered its C-suite with a new COO, CSO, CMO and chief business and strategy officer.

Neal Muni

→ Just a week after tapping Jeff Hackman as president and CEO, ReForm Biologics is bringing in Neal Muni as EVP and COO. Prior to joining ReForm, Muni most recently served as the CEO of Azurity, which issued a national recall of one lot of Firvanq last week.

→ Viva LaFrance: Partnering with RadioMedix on the production of its radiopharmaceuticals, Plus Therapeutics out of Austin, TX has appointed Norman LaFrance as CMO effective “on or around” Dec. 8. Before joining the radiotherapeutic developer, LaFrance was SVP and CMO of Jubilant Pharma, and in the mid 2000s the former member of the Johns Hopkins medical faculty was Bausch + Lomb’s VP, global pharmaceutical development.

Gustavo Stolovitzky

→ Sema4, the J&J and Sanofi-partnered patient data, testing and genomics platform that merged with Eli Casdin’s $450 million SPAC, has pulled in Gustavo Stolovitzky as CSO. Stolovitzky has spent the last two decades at IBM Research, where he was appointed IBM fellow. Prior to his appointment as fellow, Stolovitzky was the director of the translational systems biology and nanobiotechnology program.

→ Resolve Biosciences has named Erik Wiberg as CFO. Wiberg comes aboard from REVA Medical, where he also served as CFO. Prior to his stint at REVA, Wiberg served at Gyros Protein Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific, AlliedSignal and the Chamberlain Group.

Wendy Dwyer

→ Saniona has brought on Wendy Dwyer as CBO. Dwyer joins the company from Surface Oncology, where she served in the same role as CBO. Dwyer brings with her experience from her time at Portal Instruments, Ipsen Bioscience, AstraZeneca, Antigenics (now Agenus), Endo Pharmaceuticals and Indevus Pharmaceuticals.

→ Xenter has welcomed Mark Turco aboard as president of its Xenter Medical Technologies business unit. Turco hails from Sirtex Medical, where he served as EVP of research & development and global CMO. In addition, Turco previously served as CMO of Covidien and later VP and CMO of Medtronic’s aortic, peripheral and vascular divisions.

Marni Kottle

→ Norbert Bischofberger at Kronos Bio has looked to his old stomping grounds at Gilead to welcome Marni Kottle as SVP of corporate communications and investor relations. Kottle joined Gilead in 2013, overlapping with Bischofberger’s 28-year run with the California pharma, and was VP of corporate communications after a career in media where she was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Bloomberg and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Kronos got in on the 2020 IPO craze last fall, topping $250 million in an upsized offering.

Nicole Chieffo

→ It’s been a steady stream of new hires and promotions at South San Francisco-based Sutro Biopharma, and this week is no different with the introductions of Nicole Chieffo (VP of clinical operations) and Werner Rubas (VP of preclinical development). Sutro poaches Chieffo from Janssen, holding such posts as senior director, oncology global operations head and lead oncology clinical scientist. Rubas spent the last nine years at Nektar and was executive director in non-clinical pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Along with Trevor Hallam’s promotion to president of research and CSO, Sutro’s other leadership moves in 2021 include appointing CCO Jane Chung, promoting David Pauling to general counsel and elevating Robert Kiss to SVP of process and analytical development.

→ jCyte just keeps on growing too — its latest newcomer is Victor Chao as the California biotech’s first VP of CMC operations, appointed late last week. Chao arrived at jCyte after leaving Santen Pharmaceuticals as its head of commercial operations in North and Latin America. The new jCyte staffers under first-year CEO Shannon Blalock run the gamut from CFO Adam Walsh to general counsel John Sholar, among several others.

Tim Largen

→ After adding Daniela Drago from Biogen as chief regulatory officer last month, Aurion Biotech appoints Tim Largen as VP of manufacturing. Largen oversaw manufacturing at Lykan Bioscience after spending nearly a decade climbing the ranks at Dendreon. Aurion, which has headquarters in the US and Japan, is focused on pushing forward its first candidate, a cell therapy to treat corneal endothelial dysfunction.

→ Aetion, the New York health tech startup that has former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb sitting on its board of directors, has named Marla Kessler its first chief customer officer. Kessler comes to the company from IQVIA, where she served as SVP, strategy, marketing and communication. In addition to her role at IQVIA, Kessler has served at Pfizer and McKinsey. Kessler currently sits on the board of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals.

→ Rational Vaccines, focused on the treatment and prevention of herpes, has welcomed Kerstin Westritschnig as CMO. Westritschnig hails from Apeiron Biologics, where she also served in the role of CMO. Prior to that, she was SVP and member of the executive committee of Valneva.

Christina Isacson

→ Running in parallel with the news of a third and largest venture fund — $375 million, to be exact — Lightstone Ventures has also named Christina Isacson as partner and Young Kwon as operating partner. The ex-Third Rock principal and interim head of business development and strategy at Decibel, Isacson had been CSO at Magenta Therapeutics until this March. Kwon spent a decade with Momenta, initially as VP of business development and then working his way up to chief financial and business officer.

→ London-based VC Abingworth has named Jay Cui and Lucille Conroy principals, while Diya Malhotra jumps ship from LEK Consulting to be an investment manager. Cui was most recently a director at AbbVie Ventures, while Conroy was a senior associate at F-Prime Capital after almost two years at McKinsey.

Kathy Biberstein

→ Churning out biotechs at its usual steady clip, Flagship Pioneering has brought on Kathy Biberstein as general counsel and will officially join the team on Monday. In 2018 Biberstein wrapped up a 15-year association with Alkermes in which she wore a number of executive hats — EVP, chief administrative officer, chief compliance officer, chief risk officer, and chief legal officer. She’s also left the board of Nessan Bermingham-chaired Triplet Therapeutics after only serving less than a year in that capacity.

Elizabeth Bekiroğlu

→ No yellow cards for Icosavax as the Seattle-based vaccine biotech pushes forward with Neil King’s VLP “soccer ball” technology — and Elizabeth Bekiroğlu intends to keep it that way as general counsel. Bekiroğlu stays in Seattle after being Seagen’s associate general counsel, and once upon a time she was general counsel at Emergent BioSolutions. Icosavax ended up raising $182 million in an upsized IPO this summer.

→ HexTransforma has reeled in Kevin Morris as chief technology officer. Morris previously served as VP of engineering at Medidata Solutions. Morris also brings with him experience from his roles at Rovi Europe (now TiVo), Macrovision and Shalbourne Technology.

→ Neurodegenerative disease-focused Alzheon has brought on two new hires with the appointments of Adem Albayrak as head of operations and Earvin Liang as VP of clinical development. Albayrak comes from Health Catalyst’s life sciences business, where he served as SVP for technology. Earlier in his career, Albayrak worked at Knome and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Meanwhile, Liang brings with him experience from his time at Elan Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, Alzheimer’s Immunotherapy and Transition Therapeutics.

Brian Di Donato

→ Jim Wilson‘s new startup iECURE, which came from his work with Tachi Yamada, has reeled in Brian Di Donato to its board of directors. Di Donato is currently CFO and head of strategy at Immunocore. Prior to his work with Immunocore, Di Donato was SVP and CFO at Achillion.

Don Nicholson

→ Ex-Nimbus CEO Don Nicholson has been elected independent chairman of the board at Danish-Belgian neurodegenerative disease biotech Muna Therapeutics. Nicholson, who’s on the boards of Kymera and Generation Bio, also chairs Disc Medicine, Jnana Therapeutics and NodThera.

→ ROME if you want to: Upon the news of the Series B financing at Rosana Kapeller’s ROME Therapeutics, Steven Kafka and Jim Trenkle have taken seats on the board of directors. Kafka is managing partner at Section 32 and Trenkle leads investments at Sanofi Ventures, two VCs that factored heavily into the $77 million round.

Deborah Dunsire

→ Deborah Dunsire has been appointed to the board of directors at Syros, which is presenting Phase I data for its cancer drug SY-5609 at ESMO. Formerly a board member at Alexion and Allergan, Dunsire has helmed Lundbeck since 2018 and is on the board of directors at Ultragenyx.

John Johnson

→ Christian Itin’s crew at CAR-T outfit Autolus has named longtime biotech exec John Johnson chairman of the board. The Big Pharma vet chaired the board at Strongbridge Biopharma until he took over as CEO in July 2020, but Johnson has retained his board seat after Garheng Kong succeeded him as chairman.

→ Gaithersburg, MD-based Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, which scored a Series B that exceeded $40 million in May, has appointed Georgetown professor Jesse Goodman to the board of directors. From 2009-14, Goodman was chief scientist at the FDA, and for three years within that period he took on the role of deputy commissioner for science and public health.

Ruth Williams-Brinkley

→ Two days before reaching a licensing deal with Vifor Pharma, former Martin Shkreli company Travere Therapeutics added Ruth Williams-Brinkley to its board of directors. Williams-Brinkley oversees Kaiser Permanente’s operations in DC and surrounding areas, and was the CEO for multiple hospital systems in her career.

→ Ex-Kymab CEO Simon Sturge’s next endeavor will be as executive chairman of fibrosis biotech Mediar Therapeutics out of Cambridge, MA. Sturge helmed Kymab until it was sold for close to $1.5 billion in one of several M&A deals Paul Hudson has made at Sanofi this year.

Jennifer Herron

→ ADC Therapeutics SVP and chief commercial officer Jennifer Herron has joined the board of directors at Chip Clark-led cancer biotech Genocea Biosciences. The 10-year Bristol Myers vet has also been CCO at ImmunoGen and Ariad Pharmaceuticals.

→ Gilead and Pfizer vet Roger Mills has made his way to the board of directors at Philadelphia-based Enterin. Mills was EVP of development and then CMO at Acadia Pharmaceuticals after his tenure as Pfizer’s VP of global R&D.

Jigar Raythatha

→ Jigar Raythatha becomes a member of the board of directors at Jounce Therapeutics as Third Rock partner Cary Pfeffer resigns from the board on Dec. 31. Raythatha helmed Constellation Pharmaceuticals from 2017 until its $1.7 billion sale to MorphoSys, which was announced in June.

→ Owlstone Medical has appointed Mark Capone to its board of directors as an independent non-executive director. Capone is the former president and CEO of Myriad Genetics and previously held a 17-year stint at Eli Lilly.

Ruth McKernan

→ Cumulus Neuroscience’s own founder and director, Ruth McKernan, will be adding on the role of chair to her duties. McKernan, who is a neuroscientist, is also a venture partner at the Dementia Discovery Fund. Additionally, McKernan has previously served as SVP at Pfizer and head of the Merck Neuroscience Research Centre.

→ Fungal disease-focused F2G has added Camilla Soenderby to its board of directors. Soenderby most recently served as chief patient value & product strategy officer at Takeda after its acquisition of Shire. Prior to that, Soenderby was SVP, head of global product strategy for Shire, and held roles at Roche, Abbott (now AbbVie) and Schering-Plough.

→ PhaseBio Pharmaceuticals has brought on William Humphries to its board of directors. Humphries is currently the CEO of Isosceles Pharmaceuticals and previously served at Ortho Dermatologics, the North American business of Merz and Stiefel Laboratories.

In addition, another director at PhaseBio, Justin Klein, is stepping down.

→ Snapdragon Chemistry has appointed Donna Blackmond to its scientific advisory board. Blackmond, a chemical engineering professor, is currently the John C. Martin endowed chair in chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute.

Paul Schloesser also contributed to this edition.

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‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded…

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March 14, 2024

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'Excess Mortality Skyrocketed': Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack 'Criminal' COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded experimental vaccines were hastily developed for a virus which primarily killed the old and fat (and those with other obvious comorbidities), and an aggressive, global campaign to coerce billions into injecting them ensued.

Then there were the lockdowns - with some countries (New Zealand, for example) building internment camps for those who tested positive for Covid-19, and others such as China welding entire apartment buildings shut to trap people inside.

It was an egregious and unnecessary response to a virus that, while highly virulent, was survivable by the vast majority of the general population.

Oh, and the vaccines, which governments are still pushing, didn't work as advertised to the point where health officials changed the definition of "vaccine" multiple times.

Tucker Carlson recently sat down with Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist and vocal critic of vaccines. The two had a wide-ranging discussion, which included vaccine safety and efficacy, excess mortality, demographic impacts of the virus, big pharma, and the professional price Kory has paid for speaking out.

Keep reading below, or if you have roughly 50 minutes, watch it in its entirety for free on X:

"Do we have any real sense of what the cost, the physical cost to the country and world has been of those vaccines?" Carlson asked, kicking off the interview.

"I do think we have some understanding of the cost. I mean, I think, you know, you're aware of the work of of Ed Dowd, who's put together a team and looked, analytically at a lot of the epidemiologic data," Kory replied. "I mean, time with that vaccination rollout is when all of the numbers started going sideways, the excess mortality started to skyrocket."

When asked "what kind of death toll are we looking at?", Kory responded "...in 2023 alone, in the first nine months, we had what's called an excess mortality of 158,000 Americans," adding "But this is in 2023. I mean, we've  had Omicron now for two years, which is a mild variant. Not that many go to the hospital."

'Safe and Effective'

Tucker also asked Kory why the people who claimed the vaccine were "safe and effective" aren't being held criminally liable for abetting the "killing of all these Americans," to which Kory replied: "It’s my kind of belief, looking back, that [safe and effective] was a predetermined conclusion. There was no data to support that, but it was agreed upon that it would be presented as safe and effective."

Carlson and Kory then discussed the different segments of the population that experienced vaccine side effects, with Kory noting an "explosion in dying in the youngest and healthiest sectors of society," adding "And why did the employed fare far worse than those that weren't? And this particularly white collar, white collar, more than gray collar, more than blue collar."

Kory also said that Big Pharma is 'terrified' of Vitamin D because it "threatens the disease model." As journalist The Vigilant Fox notes on X, "Vitamin D showed about a 60% effectiveness against the incidence of COVID-19 in randomized control trials," and "showed about 40-50% effectiveness in reducing the incidence of COVID-19 in observational studies."

Professional costs

Kory - while risking professional suicide by speaking out, has undoubtedly helped save countless lives by advocating for alternate treatments such as Ivermectin.

Kory shared his own experiences of job loss and censorship, highlighting the challenges of advocating for a more nuanced understanding of vaccine safety in an environment often resistant to dissenting voices.

"I wrote a book called The War on Ivermectin and the the genesis of that book," he said, adding "Not only is my expertise on Ivermectin and my vast clinical experience, but and I tell the story before, but I got an email, during this journey from a guy named William B Grant, who's a professor out in California, and he wrote to me this email just one day, my life was going totally sideways because our protocols focused on Ivermectin. I was using a lot in my practice, as were tens of thousands of doctors around the world, to really good benefits. And I was getting attacked, hit jobs in the media, and he wrote me this email on and he said, Dear Dr. Kory, what they're doing to Ivermectin, they've been doing to vitamin D for decades..."

"And it's got five tactics. And these are the five tactics that all industries employ when science emerges, that's inconvenient to their interests. And so I'm just going to give you an example. Ivermectin science was extremely inconvenient to the interests of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. I mean, it threatened the vaccine campaign. It threatened vaccine hesitancy, which was public enemy number one. We know that, that everything, all the propaganda censorship was literally going after something called vaccine hesitancy."

Money makes the world go 'round

Carlson then hit on perhaps the most devious aspect of the relationship between drug companies and the medical establishment, and how special interests completely taint science to the point where public distrust of institutions has spiked in recent years.

"I think all of it starts at the level the medical journals," said Kory. "Because once you have something established in the medical journals as a, let's say, a proven fact or a generally accepted consensus, consensus comes out of the journals."

"I have dozens of rejection letters from investigators around the world who did good trials on ivermectin, tried to publish it. No thank you, no thank you, no thank you. And then the ones that do get in all purportedly prove that ivermectin didn't work," Kory continued.

"So and then when you look at the ones that actually got in and this is where like probably my biggest estrangement and why I don't recognize science and don't trust it anymore, is the trials that flew to publication in the top journals in the world were so brazenly manipulated and corrupted in the design and conduct in, many of us wrote about it. But they flew to publication, and then every time they were published, you saw these huge PR campaigns in the media. New York Times, Boston Globe, L.A. times, ivermectin doesn't work. Latest high quality, rigorous study says. I'm sitting here in my office watching these lies just ripple throughout the media sphere based on fraudulent studies published in the top journals. And that's that's that has changed. Now that's why I say I'm estranged and I don't know what to trust anymore."

Vaccine Injuries

Carlson asked Kory about his clinical experience with vaccine injuries.

"So how this is how I divide, this is just kind of my perception of vaccine injury is that when I use the term vaccine injury, I'm usually referring to what I call a single organ problem, like pericarditis, myocarditis, stroke, something like that. An autoimmune disease," he replied.

"What I specialize in my practice, is I treat patients with what we call a long Covid long vaxx. It's the same disease, just different triggers, right? One is triggered by Covid, the other one is triggered by the spike protein from the vaccine. Much more common is long vax. The only real differences between the two conditions is that the vaccinated are, on average, sicker and more disabled than the long Covids, with some pretty prominent exceptions to that."

Watch the entire interview above, and you can support Tucker Carlson's endeavors by joining the Tucker Carlson Network here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/14/2024 - 16:20

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Shakira’s net worth

After 12 albums, a tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth more than 4 decades into her care…

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14 hours ago

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March 14, 2024

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Shakira’s considerable net worth is no surprise, given her massive popularity in Latin America, the U.S., and elsewhere. 

In fact, the belly-dancing contralto queen is the second-wealthiest Latin-America-born pop singer of all time after Gloria Estefan. (Interestingly, Estefan actually helped a young Shakira translate her breakout album “Laundry Service” into English, hugely propelling her stateside success.)

Since releasing her first record at age 13, Shakira has spent decades recording albums in both Spanish and English and performing all over the world. Over the course of her 40+ year career, she helped thrust Latin pop music into the American mainstream, paving the way for the subsequent success of massively popular modern acts like Karol G and Bad Bunny.

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Shakira, the barefoot belly dancer of Barranquilla, was unveiled at the city's waterfront. The statue was commissioned by the city's former mayor and other leadership.

Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images

In December 2023, a 21-foot-tall beachside bronze statue of the “Hips Don’t Lie” singer was unveiled in her Colombian hometown of Barranquilla, making her a permanent fixture in the city’s skyline and cementing her legacy as one of Latin America’s most influential entertainers.

After 12 albums, a plethora of film and television appearances, a highly publicized tax evasion case, and now a towering bronze idol sculpted in her image, how much is Shakira worth? What does her income look like? And how does she spend her money?

Related: Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's net worth: How the new TKO Board Member built his wealth from $7

How much is Shakira worth?

In late 2023, Spanish sports and lifestyle publication Marca reported Shakira’s net worth at $400 million, citing Forbes as the figure’s source (although Forbes’ profile page for Shakira does not list a net worth — and didn’t when that article was published).

Most other sources list the singer’s wealth at an estimated $300 million, and almost all of these point to Celebrity Net Worth — a popular but dubious celebrity wealth estimation site — as the source for the figure.

A $300 million net worth would make Shakira the third-richest Latina pop star after Gloria Estefan ($500 million) and Jennifer Lopez ($400 million), and the second-richest Latin-America-born pop singer after Estefan (JLo is Puerto Rican but was born in New York).

Shakira’s income: How much does she make annually?

Entertainers like Shakira don’t have predictable paychecks like ordinary salaried professionals. Instead, annual take-home earnings vary quite a bit depending on each year’s album sales, royalties, film and television appearances, streaming revenue, and other sources of income. As one might expect, Shakira’s earnings have fluctuated quite a bit over the years.

From June 2018 to June 2019, for instance, Shakira was the 10th highest-earning female musician, grossing $35 million, according to Forbes. This wasn’t her first time gracing the top 10, though — back in 2012, she also landed the #10 spot, bringing in $20 million, according to Billboard.

In 2023, Billboard listed Shakira as the 16th-highest-grossing Latin artist of all time.

Shakira performed alongside producer Bizarrap during the 2023 Latin Grammy Awards Gala in Seville.

Photo By Maria Jose Lopez/Europa Press via Getty Images

How much does Shakira make from her concerts and tours?

A large part of Shakira’s wealth comes from her world tours, during which she sometimes sells out massive stadiums and arenas full of passionate fans eager to see her dance and sing live.

According to a 2020 report by Pollstar, she sold over 2.7 million tickets across 190 shows that grossed over $189 million between 2000 and 2020. This landed her the 19th spot on a list of female musicians ranked by touring revenue during that period. In 2023, Billboard reported a more modest touring revenue figure of $108.1 million across 120 shows.

In 2003, Shakira reportedly generated over $4 million from a single show on Valentine’s Day at Foro Sol in Mexico City. 15 years later, in 2018, Shakira grossed around $76.5 million from her El Dorado World Tour, according to Touring Data.

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How much has Shakira made from her album sales?

According to a 2023 profile in Variety, Shakira has sold over 100 million records throughout her career. “Laundry Service,” the pop icon’s fifth studio album, was her most successful, selling over 13 million copies worldwide, according to TheRichest.

Exactly how much money Shakira has taken home from her album sales is unclear, but in 2008, it was widely reported that she signed a 10-year contract with LiveNation to the tune of between $70 and $100 million to release her subsequent albums and manage her tours.

Shakira and JLo co-headlined the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Show in Florida.

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

How much did Shakira make from her Super Bowl and World Cup performances?

Shakira co-wrote one of her biggest hits, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” after FIFA selected her to create the official anthem for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. She performed the song, along with several of her existing fan-favorite tracks, during the event’s opening ceremonies. TheThings reported in 2023 that the song generated $1.4 million in revenue, citing Popnable for the figure.

A decade later, 2020’s Superbowl halftime show featured Shakira and Jennifer Lopez as co-headliners with guest performances by Bad Bunny and J Balvin. The 14-minute performance was widely praised as a high-energy celebration of Latin music and dance, but as is typical for Super Bowl shows, neither Shakira nor JLo was compensated beyond expenses and production costs.

The exposure value that comes with performing in the Super Bowl Halftime Show, though, is significant. It is typically the most-watched television event in the U.S. each year, and in 2020, a 30-second Super Bowl ad spot cost between $5 and $6 million.

How much did Shakira make as a coach on “The Voice?”

Shakira served as a team coach on the popular singing competition program “The Voice” during the show’s fourth and sixth seasons. On the show, celebrity musicians coach up-and-coming amateurs in a team-based competition that eventually results in a single winner. In 2012, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Shakira’s salary as a coach on “The Voice” was $12 million.

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How does Shakira spend her money?

Shakira doesn’t just make a lot of money — she spends it, too. Like many wealthy entertainers, she’s purchased her share of luxuries, but Barranquilla’s barefoot belly dancer is also a prolific philanthropist, having donated tens of millions to charitable causes throughout her career.

Private island

Back in 2006, she teamed up with Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame and Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz to purchase Bonds Cay, a 550-acre island in the Bahamas, which was listed for $16 million at the time.

Along with her two partners in the purchase, Shakira planned to develop the island to feature housing, hotels, and an artists’ retreat designed to host a revolving cast of artists-in-residence. This plan didn’t come to fruition, though, and as of this article’s last update, the island was once again for sale on Vladi Private Islands.

Real estate and vehicles

Like most wealthy celebs, Shakira’s portfolio of high-end playthings also features an array of luxury properties and vehicles, including a home in Barcelona, a villa in Cyprus, a Miami mansion, and a rotating cast of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

Philanthropy and charity

Shakira doesn’t just spend her massive wealth on herself; the “Queen of Latin Music” is also a dedicated philanthropist and regularly donates portions of her earnings to the Fundación Pies Descalzos, or “Barefoot Foundation,” a charity she founded in 1997 to “improve the education and social development of children in Colombia, which has suffered decades of conflict.” The foundation focuses on providing meals for children and building and improving educational infrastructure in Shakira’s hometown of Barranquilla as well as four other Colombian communities.

In addition to her efforts with the Fundación Pies Descalzos, Shakira has made a number of other notable donations over the years. In 2007, she diverted a whopping $40 million of her wealth to help rebuild community infrastructure in Peru and Nicaragua in the wake of a devastating 8.0 magnitude earthquake. Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Shakira donated a large supply of N95 masks for healthcare workers and ventilators for hospital patients to her hometown of Barranquilla.

Back in 2010, the UN honored Shakira with a medal to recognize her dedication to social justice, at which time the Director General of the International Labour Organization described her as a “true ambassador for children and young people.”

On November 20, 2023 (which was supposed to be her first day of trial), Shakira reached a deal with the prosecution that resulted in a three-year suspended sentence and around $8 million in fines.

Photo by Adria Puig/Anadolu via Getty Images

Shakira’s tax fraud scandal: How much did she pay?

In 2018, prosecutors in Spain initiated a tax evasion case against Shakira, alleging she lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014 and therefore failed to pay around $14.4 million in taxes to the Spanish government. Spanish law requires anyone who is “domiciled” (i.e., living primarily) in Spain for more than half of the year to pay income taxes.

During the period in question, Shakira listed the Bahamas as her primary residence but did spend some time in Spain, as she was dating Gerard Piqué, a professional footballer and Spanish citizen. The couple’s first son, Milan, was also born in Barcelona during this period. 

Shakira maintained that she spent far fewer than 183 days per year in Spain during each of the years in question. In an interview with Elle Magazine, the pop star opined that “Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate. It's clear they wanted to go after that money no matter what."

Prosecutors in the case sought a fine of almost $26 million and a possible eight-year prison stint, but in November of 2023, Shakira took a deal to close the case, accepting a fine of around $8 million and a three-year suspended sentence to avoid going to trial. In reference to her decision to take the deal, Shakira stated, "While I was determined to defend my innocence in a trial that my lawyers were confident would have ruled in my favour [had the trial proceeded], I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart who do not want to see their mom sacrifice her personal well-being in this fight."

How much did the Shakira statue in Barranquilla cost?

In late 2023, a 21-foot-tall bronze likeness of Shakira was unveiled on a waterfront promenade in Barranquilla. The city’s then-mayor, Jaime Pumarejo, commissioned Colombian sculptor Yino Márquez to create the statue of the city’s treasured pop icon, along with a sculpture of the city’s coat of arms.

According to the New York Times, the two sculptures cost the city the equivalent of around $180,000. A plaque at the statue’s base reads, “A heart that composes, hips that don’t lie, an unmatched talent, a voice that moves the masses and bare feet that march for the good of children and humanity.” 

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International

Delta Air Lines adds a new route travelers have been asking for

The new Delta seasonal flight to the popular destination will run daily on a Boeing 767-300.

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14 hours ago

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March 14, 2024

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Those who have tried to book a flight from North America to Europe in the summer of 2023 know just how high travel demand to the continent has spiked.

At 2.93 billion, visitors to the countries making up the European Union had finally reached pre-pandemic levels last year while North Americans in particular were booking trips to both large metropolises such as Paris and Milan as well as smaller cities growing increasingly popular among tourists.

Related: A popular European city is introducing the highest 'tourist tax' yet

As a result, U.S.-based airlines have been re-evaluating their networks to add more direct routes to smaller European destinations that most travelers would have previously needed to reach by train or transfer flight with a local airline.

The new flight will take place on a Boeing 767-300.

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Delta Air Lines: ‘Glad to offer customers increased choice…’

By the end of March, Delta Air Lines  (DAL)  will be restarting its route between New York’s JFK and Marco Polo International Airport in Venice as well as launching two new flights to Venice from Atlanta. One will start running this month while the other will be added during peak demand in the summer.

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“As one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Venice is hugely popular with U.S. travelers, and our flights bring valuable tourism and trade opportunities to the city and the region as well as unrivalled opportunities for Venetians looking to explore destinations across the Americas,” Delta’s SVP for Europe Matteo Curcio said in a statement. “We’re glad to offer customers increased choice this summer with flights from New York and additional service from Atlanta.”

The JFK-Venice flight will run on a Boeing 767-300  (BA)  and have 216 seats including higher classes such as Delta One, Delta Premium Select and Delta Comfort Plus.

Delta offers these features on the new flight

Both the New York and Atlanta flights are seasonal routes that will be pulled out of service in October. Both will run daily while the first route will depart New York at 8:55 p.m. and arrive in Venice at 10:15 a.m. local time on the way there, while leaving Venice at 12:15 p.m. to arrive at JFK at 5:05 p.m. on the way back.

According to Delta, this will bring its service to 17 flights from different U.S. cities to Venice during the peak summer period. As with most Delta flights at this point, passengers in all fare classes will have access to free Wi-Fi during the flight.

Those flying in Delta’s highest class or with access through airline status or a credit card will also be able to use the new Delta lounge that is part of the airline’s $12 billion terminal renovation and is slated to open to travelers in the coming months. The space will take up more than 40,000 square feet and have an outdoor terrace.

“Delta One customers can stretch out in a lie-flat seat and enjoy premium amenities like plush bedding made from recycled plastic bottles, more beverage options, and a seasonal chef-curated four-course meal,” Delta said of the new route. “[…] All customers can enjoy a wide selection of in-flight entertainment options and stay connected with Wi-Fi and enjoy free mobile messaging.”

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