After a year at Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, Brett Pletcher is going back in-house, this time as chief legal officer at late-stage biopharma Cytokinetics.

Pletcher was previously the top lawyer and corporate secretary at Gilead Sciences, where he guided the pharmaceutical giant through high-profile lawsuits over its patents for drugs to treat HIV and hepatitis C. He also steered Gilead through its $11.9 billion landmark purchase of Kite Pharma in 2017, an acquisition that helped give Gilead an edge in developing cancer treatments.