News from J&J, Teva and Amarantus – People on the move
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has drafted Eugene Washington onto its board of directors.
Washington – the vice chancellor for University of California and LA (UCLA) – also currently serves as chairman of the board for the Patient-Centered Outcomnes Research Institute.
"Gene has dedicated his life to improving health care as a practitioner, researcher, teacher, administrator, and policy advisor. He brings our board valuable leadership and insight into analysing health care policy, assessing medical technologies, and sharing forward-looking perspectives on the role we can play in addressing the world's health care challenges," said Bill Weldon, J&J chairman.
Teva Pharmaceuticals has named Jill DeSimone its new senior VP and general manager of Teva Global Women’s Health division.
Previously she worked for Bristol-Myers Squibb where she was senior VP of US commercialisation excellence.
Meanwhile Allan Oberman, currently the firm’s senior VP of North America generic pharmaceuticals will take on the role of president and CEO of Teva Americas Generics. He replaces William Marth, who will become a senior advisor until his retirement next year.
Jeremy Levin, president and CEO of the Teva group, said the changes were part of the decision to “reshape” the firm’s leadership team.
He said: “These changes underlie our commitment to build, in a disciplined fashion, a world class business and provide much needed medicines to patients around the world."
Oncos Therapeutics has appointed Frans Wuite its new president and CEO.
Frans Wuite – who also owns a management consulting for life science firm named Owner Kompassi – joins the firm from Cryo-Save Group where he was a management consultant.
Founding CEO Pekka Simula will now take on the role of chief operating officer.
Joseph Rubinfeld has joined the Amarantus BioSciences corporate advisory board.
Rubinfield, who co-founded Amgen, will work with management over development programs for partnering and business strategies for the firm’s proprietary anti-apoptosis therapeutic protein MANF.
He said: "I have reviewed a great number of technologies in my 45 year career in the biopharmaceutical field, and I believe that MANF could be one of the biggest successes that I have ever seen.
“I believe that if we are able to further de-risk MANF with positive toxicology studies and early clinical data, the company's new orphan drug strategy could get MANF to market rather expeditiously. MANF has the commercial potential to become a blockbuster drug."
Thom Rowland will become VP of commercial operations for Arbor Pharmaceuticals.
Previously he was chief business officer at Ventrus Biosciences.
Ed Schutter, President and CEO of Arbor, said: "As our business grows and we become more complex, we felt it was essential that we have someone of Thom's level of experience on board.”
