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Blueprint Medicines gets more ducks in a row before CEO transition; Paul Stoffels has his work cut out for him at Gilead’s crumbling partner

Philina Lee
→ When Jeff Albers announced he would no longer be CEO of Blueprint Medicines, the leadership carousel at the Aykakit maker had yet to wind down. Yes, Kate Haviland is next in line to replace Albers in April and Christina Rossi will succeed…

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Philina Lee

→ When Jeff Albers announced he would no longer be CEO of Blueprint Medicines, the leadership carousel at the Aykakit maker had yet to wind down. Yes, Kate Haviland is next in line to replace Albers in April and Christina Rossi will succeed Haviland as COO, but who would fill Rossi’s position? The answers lies within the company again, as Philina Lee has been promoted to chief commercial officer and Helen Ho takes over CBO responsibilities.

In August 2014, Lee joined Blueprint as senior director, new product strategy and development, and she has since risen to SVP, head of portfolio strategy and program management. Ho, a veteran of TCR² Therapeutics and Agios Pharmaceuticals, became VP of corporate development at Blueprint in 2018 and will handle Lee’s portfolio strategy and program management duties in addition to corporate and business development.

Paul Stoffels

→ If you didn’t have Paul Stoffels to Galapagos on your bingo card this week, we don’t blame you. On par with Hal Barron’s decision to leave GlaxoSmithKline and tackle the CEO job at Altos Labs, the Belgian biotech produced some shock waves on Wednesday with the news that Stoffels will take over as chief executive on April 1 after his retirement from J&J. Stoffels will try to apply a defibrillator to a company in desperate need of resuscitation now that the partnership with Gilead has collapsed under the weight of the filgotinib fail of 2020 and other deflating readouts from last year, making this a steep mountain to climb for the respected exec. Stoffels replaces Onno van de Stolpe, who saw the writing on the wall and announced last August that he would retire as Galapagos CEO.

Bill Conkling

→ After the Phase III study for metastatic pancreatic cancer at Rafael Holdings bellyflopped impressively in October 2021, CEO Ameet Mallik was initially supposed to cede the top spot to founder and chairman Howard Jonas. Instead, the CEO job will go to Bill Conkling, one of several execs on the chopping block in the first place. Conkling, ex-VP of sales, marketing, market access and commercial operations at Immunomedics, had taken on the roles of chief commercial and business officer last March and will take the helm on Feb. 1.

That’s not all from Rafael: Rick Ewing has stepped in to lead drug discovery, and effective this coming Monday, CMO Mimi Huizenga will take the exit ramp. Ewing rides into Rafael after a 21-year career at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he was recently senior director, small molecule drug discovery.

Nader Pourhassan

→ In a Hail Mary attempt to nurse the remaining bits of its image back to health, CytoDyn has fired CEO Nader Pourhassan — the executive responsible for guiding the disastrous R&D effort and PR campaign for leronlimab, an investigational drug the company has pitched as a potential therapy for cancer, Covid-19 and HIV. In the interim, CFO Antonio Migliarese will be taking up the mantle, while the company searches for a more permanent replacement with the “requisite pharmaceutical industry experience to enhance the Company’s efforts to achieve regulatory approval and commercialization of leronlimab.” Leronlimab, once pitched as a potential “pipeline-in-a-product” for CytoDyn, has landed the company into a lot of hot water with the DOJ and SEC as they are still investigating whether the biotech actively looked to fool investors about the state of its drug’s chances.

Johanna Rossell

→ Is there an ongoing purge at Biogen? There are signs pointing in this direction, with one source telling Endpoints News a couple months ago “we are losing people left and right” at the company that’s become infamous for its Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm. Case in point: Biogen’s global Alzheimer’s lead Johanna Rossell has bolted to fill Enzyvant’s chief commercial officer post. After a decade at Novartis, Rossell was Merck’s US biosimilars head, immunology and then the VP of new products at Mallinckrodt before joining Biogen in 2019. Rossell will steer commercialization efforts for Enzyvant’s congenital athymia drug Rethymic, which was approved by the FDA in October 2021.

Tricia Brooks

→ Biogen’s Alzheimer’s partner Eisai, which also teams up with Merck on a Keytruda/Lenvima combo, has enlisted Tricia Brooks as VP & head of office, government affairs and policy. Brooks, who spent nearly nine years with Novo Nordisk in public affairs, jumps to Eisai after a fairly short stay as VP, government affairs & policy at Ardelyx, a biotech trying to recover from last year’s CRL and two drastic reductions in its staff.

Brent Saunders

→ Time to play another game of “What’s Brent Saunders Up To Now?” This week, Saunders has been added to the board of directors at Osmind, a San Francisco healthcare company “building the first digital infrastructure for neuropsychiatry” that scored a modest Series A round in July 2021. In one of his first post-Allergan moves, Saunders also joined the board of OcuTerra last May when few people knew anything at all about the ophthalmic disease biotech. His appointment follows that of Osmind’s chief growth officer Adam Farren and two new members of the scientific advisory board, Maurizio Fava and Boris Heifets.

Shannon Campbell

→ Partnering with Eli Lilly on cancer drug zenocutuzumab — which had a data reveal at ASCO last summer — Dutch biotech Merus has appointed Shannon Campbell as chief commercial officer to carve out zeno’s commercialization strategy. Campbell shifts to Merus after leading the US solid tumor franchise at Novartis since 2017, and she was also head of the US oncology business during her 12 years at Bayer. Merus and Lilly’s T cell engager deal, inked in January 2021, is worth up to $1.6 billion.

→ Cintia Piccina had only been with Nick Leschly’s bluebird bio spinoff 2seventy for a couple months before pivoting to a chief commercial officer gig at Adaptimmune, which plans to submit a BLA sometime this year for afami-cel. Before she was head of commercial at 2seventy, Piccina was at the forefront of the Abecma launch as bluebird’s SVP, commercial oncology and US general manager, and to cap off a 23-year career with Novartis, she was VP, global oncology cell and gene strategy & program management office, for Kymriah and the rest of the Swiss pharma’s CAR-T pipeline.

Guy Braunstein

→ They’ll be there for you: Hoping that new TV ads with Jennifer Aniston can boost sales of its newly-approved insomnia drug Quviviq, Idorsia has promoted Guy Braunstein to CMO and Alberto Gimona to head of global clinical development. Braunstein had led global clinical development from the beginning at Idorsia and since the Actelion days, going back to 2009. Gimona’s association with CEO Jean-Paul Clozel also dates back to Actelion, sliding into Braunstein’s old job after nearly three years as head of therapeutic area units.

Florence Zhu

→ Asher Biotherapeutics, an IL-2 biotech backed by Third Rock and RA Capital which lists the Netherlands Cancer Institute’s Ton Schumacher as one of its scientific founders, has a parade of new execs, starting with CBO Don O’Sullivan. This is O’Sullivan’s first C-suite post after more than 11 years at Roche/Genentech, where he was VP, global head of oncology partnering. Next, James Cross (VP, regulatory affairs) had been running his own consulting firm after his year-long stints as executive director of regulatory affairs for Halozyme and head of regulatory affairs with Forty Seven. Finally, Florence Zhu (VP, finance) is another Forty Seven alum who was VP of finance and corporate controller at Olema Oncology.

→ Flagship Pioneering has made Tom DiLenge senior partner, global public policy, regulatory & governmental strategy. DiLenge joins Noubar Afeyan’s troops after more than 15 years at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) that concluded in May 2021 as president of the Advocacy, Law & Public Policy Division.

David Thomson

→ San Francisco AI player Atomwise has a stacked slate of hires, and CSO David Thomson bats leadoff. Thomson — the ex-head of research and nonclinical development at Shire — has made the leap to Atomwise from Precision BioSciences, where he was chief development officer and then COO during a four-year run. Next, CFO Jonathan Barr is a Juno vet who was recently VP of finance and operations at BridgeBio, while new general counsel and corporate secretary Jeffrey Cerio just held the same posts at Triplet Therapeutics and was Moderna’s senior corporate counsel, securities. One other note: Atomwise has also made room for Lori Kunkel and Ron Dror on its board of directors.

Edwin Tucker

→ Another biotech with Third Rock ties, kidney disease player Goldfinch Bio, has tapped Edwin Tucker as CMO. Tucker, the medical chief at Mirum Pharmaceuticals since October 2019, has also played a central role in the US approval of Calquence as COO at Acerta Pharma. Goldfinch Bio’s lead asset GFB-887 targets focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) and diabetic nephropathy, and the biotech is shooting to read out data for the drug this year along with another candidate, GFB-024.

Paul Robson

→ Cloud-based R&D startup Benchling, which tacked on a $100 million Series F round back in November, has snared Paul Robson as president of field operations. Robson had spent the last decade at Adobe and was president of the company’s international business since 2019. Also, Benchling has given former Axiom CEO Elena Donio a seat at the board of directors.

→ Peter Thiel–backed peptide player Peptilogics out of Pittsburgh (say that five times fast) has promoted Nicholas Nystrom to chief technology officer. Nystrom became head of computation and data at Peptilogics in early 2021 after he spent 28 years at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, working his way up to interim director and later chief scientist.

Daniel Camardo

→ Regenerative medicine company Athersys has locked in Daniel Camardo as CEO — taking over for interim CEO William Lehmann, who will continue serving as the company’s president and COO. Camardo comes to the Cleveland-based company from Horizon Therapeutics, where he currently serves as EVP and head of the rare disease and inflammation business units. Additionally, Camardo has served at Astellas, where he helped drive the commercial business from US market entry to more than $3.5 billion in annual net sales driven by a portfolio of specialty and rare disease medicines.

→ Martire Particco has become the new CMO at Napo Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Jaguar Health. For the last five years, Particco served as VP, head of medical affairs for Europe for Shionogi Europe. Particco was senior medical director for biotechnology at the tail end of her time with Pfizer/Wyeth, and she’s also been director of global pharmacovigilance, medical & clinical affairs for Kedrion Biopharma.

Mark Levine

→ Pete Salzmann-led Immunovant has pegged Mark Levine as chief legal officer, several months after bringing CFO Renee Barnett into the fold. Levine has served as general counsel and corporate secretary at Flexion Therapeutics and Minerva Neurosciences before heading to Immunovant, which is poised to initiate a Phase III trial in the first half of this year for its myasthenia gravis drug batoclimab.

Janelle Anderson

→ According to its website, UK-Austria antifungal biotech F2G has retooled its C-suite a bit with Mark Baglin as chief commercial officer and Janelle Anderson as CBO. Baglin was in charge of the hereditary angioedema franchise at Shire before kickstarting a four-year run at Alnylam, where he got elevated to SVP, head of marketed products. Anderson is the former chief strategy officer at Century Therapeutics, which made a $150 million cell therapy deal with Bristol Myers earlier this month. In other F2G news, Sylvie Gregoire — the ex-president of Shire’s rare disease division and the current executive chair of EIP Pharma — is now a member of the board of directors.

→ Galapagos’ idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis partner OncoArendi Therapeutics has brought on Samson Fung as CMO. After a myriad of roles at such Big Pharmas as Roche, Novartis and AstraZeneca, Fung has held leadership posts at argenx, Micromet and MorphoSys. Rafal Kaminski just left OncoArendi to become chief scientist at Angelini Pharma.

Karen Neuendorff

→ Chinese biotech Brii Biosciences — which stood by its Covid-19 antibody cocktail’s ability to fight against the Omicron variant even though one of the antibodies showed a drop in activity when it was tested alone — has reeled in Karen Neuendorff as chief people officer and head of human resources. Neuendorff joins the company from WeDriveU, where she served as SVP, human resources. Prior to that, she had a 14-year stint as VP, global human resources at Nexant.

Stuart Milstein

→ Flagship “intersystems” player Senda Biosciences, which enjoyed a $98 million Series B haul last June, has recruited Stuart Milstein as SVP and head of platform biology. Milstein led the RNAi lead development group during his 11-year tenure at Alnylam, and since 2019 he had served as VP of platform biology at the Nessan Bermingham RNA editing startup Korro Bio.

Charlotte Jones-Burton

→ Seattle kidney disease biotech Chinook Therapeutics makes its first Peer Review appearance since the appointment of CFO Eric Bjerkholt, naming Charlotte Jones-Burton SVP of product development and strategy. Before her recent stint as VP of global clinical development and head of nephrology at Otsuka, Jones-Burton gained Big Pharma experience at Merck and as global development team leader for the cardiovascular area during her eight years at Bristol Myers.

→ Next-gen cancer immunotherapy player BioEclipse Therapeutics has brought on Stephen Ghiglieri, a managing director for the West Coast Region at Danforth Advisors, as interim CFO. Ghilglieri has worn the CFO hat before while running stints at Oacis Healthcare Systems, Avolent, NeurogesX, MedData, Galena BioPharma and Covalent Health.

In addition, the company has also welcomed Mahmoud Mahmoudian to its board of directors. Mahmoudian hails from Sumitomo Oncology, where he served as SVP and head of global oncology external innovation hub. Earlier in his career, Mahmoudian had roles at Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Merck and GSK.

Brad Savall

→ Brad Savall has signed on to be VP and head of chemistry at Herophilus, the California neuro upstart that nabbed CSO Sharath Hegde from Recursion last May. Savall just had a lightning-quick stay as director of medicinal chemistry at Plexium (now helmed by Astellas vet Percival Barretto-Ko) and has also been a medicinal chemistry leader at J&J’s Janssen.

→ Sudhir Rao has joined Boston-based RNA player Expansion Therapeutics, which just welcomed Gary Bridger to the board of directors, as SVP of business development. Rao is the former VP of business development for Genocea Biosciences, and he has also served as the director of R&D transactions at Takeda.

Jim Kennamer

→ The US-UK CDMO Abzena has lassoed Jim Kennamer as SVP and site head of North Carolina, a facility we told you about in April 2021. Kennamer just spent six years at Immucor as VP of global manufacturing operations, and earlier he was VP of manufacturing at Talecris Biotherapeutics, continuing in the role when Grifols bought the plasma company in 2010.

→ San Diego RNA editing startup ADARx Pharmaceuticals follows up the appointment of CMO Hubert Chen by welcoming Christopher Claeboe as VP, CMC and manufacturing. Claeboe filled multiple roles in his four-plus years at ChemoCentryx, closing out his time at the avacopan developer as executive director, drug substance & drug product.

Nirdosh Jagota

→ Nirdosh Jagota has been named SVP, regulatory affairs, compliance & safety at Ocugen, a gene therapy biotech that’s also trying its hand at a Covid-19 vaccine. Jagota’s time at Arcturus was fleeting, lasting only a handful of months as chief regulatory officer, and he’s also held regulatory posts in the land of pharma giants, including with Pfizer, Roche/Genentech and Merck.

→ San Diego CDMO Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services is bringing on Allergan vet Tony O’Neill as its VP of compliance, US operations. During his quarter century at Allergan, O’Neill’s roles included executive director, quality operations and executive director, risk management and compliance.

Michael Kauffman

→ Former Karyopharm CEO Michael Kauffman has taken a seat on the board of directors at BiVictriX Therapeutics as an independent non-executive director. Prior to running the ship at Karyopharm, Kauffman was CMO at Onyx Pharmaceuticals and president and CEO of EPIX Pharmaceuticals. Kauffman’s other stints include roles at Millennium and Biogen.

Melanie Ivarsson

→ Moderna’s chief development officer Melanie Ivarsson is making her way onto the board of directors at UK-based LoQus23 Therapeutics as a non-executive director. Prior to her current role at Moderna, Ivarsson has led a star-studded career with stints at Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Shire and Takeda.

Paul Hoelscher

→ Novo Ventures partner Kenneth Harrison has resigned from the board of directors at Reneo Pharmaceuticals, leaving a slot open for Paul Hoelscher. Reneo executive chairman Mike Grey and Hoelscher know each other from Horizon; Hoelscher has been Tim Walbert’s CFO since 2014. In other board news, Lon Cardon will serve out his term and then step down after becoming president and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory.

→ Boston-based Ikena Oncology, which struck while the IPO iron was still hot last year, has elected Richard Wooster to the board of directors. The GSK oncology vet was previously the CSO of Translate Bio, which Sanofi purchased for $3.2 billion back in August.

→ Curt Medeiros and Gregg Givens have joined the board of directors at Kansas City, KS-based ADHD biotech Cingulate, a poster child for a flagging IPO landscape. Medeiros is the CEO of Ovation.io, where he also serves on the board. Prior to that, he was president of both Optum Analytics and Optum Advanced Data & Analytics. Givens has held the positions of SVP, CFO, and treasurer at DST Systems.

→ San Francisco-based Concentric Analgesics has signed on two new members to its board of directors with the appointments of former Gilead EVP and CCO Paul Carter and Jonathan Lynch. This isn’t Carter’s first rodeo in a board seat. He currently sits on the boards of HutchMed PLC, Mallinckrodt, Immatics, VectivBio and Evox Therapeutics. Meanwhile, Lynch currently manages Incisive Capital.

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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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6 hours ago

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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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11 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.

Related: RuPaul's net worth: Everything to know about the cultural icon and force behind 'Drag Race'

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.

Related: John Cena's net worth: The wrestler-turned-actor's investments, businesses, and more

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.” 

Related: Taylor Swift net worth: The most successful entertainer joins the billionaire's club

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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.

Published

11 hours ago

on

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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