A number of companies spent the early part of the year creating and then filling new positions, which has seen a big pharma company follow the trend of appointing a chief digital officer.
One of the largest CDMO’s in the industry made the move to install an existing employee into the newly created position of COO. While another company’s pivot towards the dermatology space continued with the appointment of a head of translational science to oversee the development of a new hub in Boston.
A number of companies spent the early part of the year creating and then filling new positions, which has seen a big pharma company follow the trend of appointing a chief digital officer.
One of the largest CDMO’s in the industry made the move to install an existing employee into the newly created position of COO. While another company’s pivot towards the dermatology space continued with the appointment of a head of translational science to oversee the development of a new hub in Boston.
Sanofi has moved to appoint a chief digital officer, with the company deciding to hand the role to current CMO, Ameet Nathwani, in addition to his current duties.
Sanofi joins other larger pharma companies, such as Novartis and GSK, in seeing the value of an individual heading up digital efforts across the business being given a prominent position on the board.
Olivier Brandicourt, CEO of Sanofi, said, "With Ameet's wide experience in digital health and analytics, we will be able to further advance our capabilities to re-invent not only the way we discover and develop medicines but the types of future products we may offer to patients around the world."
Nathwani has worked at Sanofi for close to three years and has not previously held a role on the digital side of a business, though he arrived with a significant amount of experience of working at companies of similar scale.
Before joining Sanofi, he had spent 12 years at Novartis, where he reached the position of SVP and global head of medical affairs. He also worked at GSK for nine years, where he focused on clinical development of its cardiovascular portfolio.
Alessandro Maselli has been promoted to the position of president and to the newly created position of COO at Catalent. Maselli had previously been VP of global operations and has served at the company for eight years, in total.
“We have now reached a stage where we can benefit from more executive team bandwidth to permit the necessary focus on both external opportunities and on operational excellence across our broad scope of businesses,” said John Chiminski, chair and CEO of Catalent.
Shortly after Maselli was promoted, Catalent hired Kay Schmidt as SVP of technical operations. Schmidt will report to Maselli and will have a focus on improving project management efforts. Schmidt reaches the position from as another internal promotion, after having previously worked as VP of R&D.
In a major reshuffle at the top of Lonza, the company announced that Richard Ridinger, current CEO, would step down and be replaced by current COO, Marc Funk. The transition will occur on March 1, with Ridinger staying with the company until the end of April to facilitate the leadership transfer and then he will move into an advisory position until the end of 2019.
Funk joined Lonza in 2008, when he took on the position of chief legal and compliance officer. In 2014, he was promoted to COO and also served as board secretary from 2014 until 2014.
Prior to Lonza, Funk worked at Merck Serono for four years as head of corporate law and was the co-CEO of biotech, GeneProt – also for four years.
Funk said, “I am honoured to have been chosen as the new CEO of Lonza. Over the last few years, I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of advancing our Pharma & Biotech business and playing a key role in shaping its development into the world leadership position it enjoys today.”
LEO Pharma appointed Thomas Hultsch as head of translational medicine. Hultsch has been set the task of building a new translational medicine group in Boston, US, as well as overseeing existing operations in the US and Europe.
Hultsch joins the company from Sanofi, where he held the position of senior medical director for translational medicine. Prior to this, he had worked as a VP for medical marketing for dermatology products at Galderma.
“At LEO Pharma, we work relentlessly to help patients with skin diseases. We are driven by our desire to offer new, innovative medicines better and faster than anyone else, and our aspiration is to help 125 million patients by 2025. The addition of the new unit in Boston will boost our position in Translational Medicine and help us achieve exactly that”, said Kim Kjoeller, EVP for global research and development at LEO Pharma.
The move follows the decision by LEO Pharma to bolster its dermatology division with the acquisition of Bayer’s dermatology unit, shortly followed by a deal to gain access to JW Pharmaceutical’s atopic dermatitis drug candidate.
Dr. Reddy’s brought in Marc Kikuchi as CEO of its North America Generics division. The region is a particularly important sector for the business, with more than half of revenue from global sales of generics generated in the region, according to 2017/2018 financial figures – while global sales of generics make up 80% of the net revenue for the overall business.
Kikuchi arrives at the company having already accrued a number of years’ experience of the generics market in North America. He worked as CEO for the Americas at Zydus Pharmaceuticals for two years and worked at AmerisourceBergen for 11 years, holding the role of SVP of global generics during this time.
