Sanofi-aventis has promoted Olivier Charmeil to senior vice president (SVP), Sanofi Pasteur. Charmeil, who currently works as SVP, global operations, Asia-Pacific and Japan, will replace Wayne Pisano who will retire in February 2011.
Stefan Oschmann has been named as head of pharmaceuticals at Merck KGaA after Elmar Schnee retired for “personal reasons”. Schnee departs after the pharma unit suffered a number of regulatory setbacks. Oschmann joins after working at Merck & Co for 20 years.
Merck KGaA has also appointed Kai Beckmann as member of the executive board responsible for human resources, a new position, and general partner. Beckmann has worked on information technology at Merck KGaA since 1989.
AstraZeneca has hired Steve Yang to develop Asian R&D capabilities. Yang is the latest executive to leave Pfizer, where he headed Asian R&D, for AstraZeneca. Martin Mackay, who Yang will report to at AstraZeneca, and Menelas Pangalos made the same move earlier this year.
Also, Pfizer has elected George Lorch as non-executive chairman of the board. Lorch has been a Pfizer independent director since 2000 and also holds positions at HSBC and Autoliv.
Ted Schwarz has been promoted to president of SkinMedica. Schwarz joined the company in 2005 and will now replace Mary Fisher as president. Fisher continues as CEO of the company.
AVI BioPharma has named Chris Garabedian as CEO and president. Garabedian replaces J David Boyle II who held the positions on an interim basis and will continue as chief financial officer and SVP. Garabedian joined the AVI board of directors in June having worked at Celgene.
Robert Ingram has been appointed as chairman of the board of directors at Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Ingram is lead independent director at Valeant and replaces William Wells, who has resigned “to pursue other interests”.
SurModics has named Gary Maharaj as president and CEO. Maharaj replaces Philip Ankeny, who was interim-CEO, and has previously worked at Arizant and Philip Adam and Associates.