Legend Names Novartis Executive as CEO

Legend Biotech LEGN -2.29%decrease; red down pointing triangle said it has appointed Ingrid Zhang as chief executive, effective Tuesday.

Legend launched a search for a new CEO after Ying Huang resigned as chief executive on July 24—an abrupt move that sent shares tumbling more than 10% that day.

Huang had led Legend for seven years as the Bridgewater, N.J.-based company launched its first and only commercial product, a CAR-T called Carvykti, which reprograms cells to fight cancer. Alan Bash, who led that business, has been serving as interim CEO.

Shares of Legend rose more than 2% in premarket trading.

Zhang had served as Novartis’s international chief commercial officer since 2024. Before that, she was president of the Swiss drugmaker’s China business.

She previously held leadership roles at AstraZeneca and Pfizer, and was a McKinsey consultant.

Zhang inherits a company built around Carvykti, a one-time therapy for multiple myeloma. It brought in $1.9 billion in sales last year and more than $1 billion in the first half of this year alone.

Legend develops and sells Carvykti with Johnson & Johnson as part of a 2017 deal in which the companies split profits equally outside China, while Legend keeps 70% of profits inside China.

Legend is testing an experimental cell therapy that engineers cells to fight lymphoma directly inside a patient’s body, avoiding the weekslong manufacturing process Carvykti requires. Early data released this year showed the treatment shrank tumors in all six patients tested at the higher of two doses.