[5] To expand the portfolio of treatments for autoimmune disorders, Johnson & Johnson acquired Momenta Pharmaceuticals for $6.5 billion in an all-cash deal in 2020,[7] after nipocalimab, a treatment developed by Momenta received a rare paediatric disease designation from the US Food and Drug Administration.
[7][8] In 2002 he co-founded Alnylam Pharmaceuticals as CEO, which was built to discover and develop drugs and reagents based on RNA interference based on work done by scientists Phillip Sharp, Paul Schimmel, David Bartel, and Thomas Tuschl; John Maraganore was hired as CEO in 2002.
In 2003 he co-founded Acceleron Pharma as CEO with scientists Jasbir Seehra, Tom Maniatis, Mark Ptashne, Wylie Vale, and scientific advisor Joan Massague, and John Knopf.
[28] Westphal was made CEO of the subsidiary and appointed Senior Vice President of GSK's Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD) unit.
[29][30][31][32] In 2008, Westphal worked with Dipp, Aldrich, and Alexey Margolin to found Alnara Pharmaceuticals, which was created to develop ways to formulate biopharmaceuticals so they could be taken by mouth, instead of by injection.
[24][33] Margolin had been CEO of Altus Therapeutics, which had been developing liprotamase, which it had licensed from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, but ran out of money.
[27][44][45] Also in August 2010, the Longwood team co-founded VeraStem by providing seed funding and office space in its own offices, with Westphal serving as CEO and chairman of the board; Verastem aimed to isolate cancer stem cells and then discover drugs that would selectively kill them.
[54] OvaScience held its public offering in 2012, and part of its pitch to investors was that its services would probably not be regulated by the FDA so it would probably be able to start generating significant revenue in the US by the end of 2013, but in 2013 the FDA ruled that it would need to file an investigational new drug application before it could start marketing the service; OvaScience's shares fell 40% in response.
[59][60] In 2014 the company described itself as a developer of drugs for neuromuscular disorders, pursuing treatments muscle cramping across a range of conditions including multiple sclerosis, ALS, and cramping in athletes, based on MacKinnon's Nobel Prize winning work on ion channels, and raised a $40 million Series A round.
[62] In October 2016 the company released data from a clinical trial of its lead drug candidate for nocturnal leg cramps FLX-787, in which FLX-787 failed to meet the primary endpoints.
[64] In June 2018 the company halted clinical development of the drug candidate due to tolerability issues, cut its workforce, and said it was considering its strategy.
[66] From 2017 to 2023, Westphal as Ceo founded TScan (now publicly traded $TCRX) with Lasker winner Steve Elledge (Harvard Med), Immunitas with Kai Wucherpfennig (Dana Farber / Harvard Med ), DEM with Jonathan Weissman of MIT, and Solu Therapeutics (spin out of GSK).