News from Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim – People on the move
We begin this week with news from French Pharma giant Sanofi who has announced David Loew has been appointed as Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, Europe.
Swiss-born Leow comes to Sanofi from Roche, where he was most recently Regional Head Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.
“Europe remains a key strategic region for Sanofi, with a high level of complexity and diversity of markets, facing critical challenges in a mature environment,” said Peter Guenter, currently Senior Vice President, Europe at Sanofi. “David’s vast experience, international exposure and know how at both country and corporate positions will be a significant addition to Sanofi and make him ideally suited to lead our commercial operations in Europe.”
And you can read about Sanofi’s semisynthetic malaria drug production here.
To Germany now, and Professor Wolfram Carius, Member of the Board of Managing Directors of Boehringer Ingelheim has decided to step down and will be replaced by Dr Wolfgang Baiker.
Baiker has been with the company since 1989 and has held various functions in the Corporate Board Division Research, Development and Medicine in both the US and Germany.
The firm thanked “Prof. Carius for his thoroughly committed and very successful contribution to the company over many years,” and welcomed Baiker onboard.
And click here to read about the recent manufacturing issues at Boehringer Ingelheim’s German API facility.
Next up is Biogen Idec who has appointed Dr. Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas as Chief Scientific Officer.
Dr. Artavanis-Tsakonas served as interim CSO while on sabbatical from Harvard Medical School and will continue in this role in a permanent capacity.
Doug Williams, Executive Vice President of Research and Development, said: “He will continue what he has successfully started at Biogen Idec—attracting and encouraging exceptional scientific talent, enhancing our existing early discovery programs, establishing extensive academic collaborations and leading our drug discovery strategy.”
Moderna Therapeutics has appointed John Reynders as its first Chief Information Officer.
Reynder joins Moderna from AstraZeneca, where he served as Vice President of R&D Information, and has previously held senior leadership positions over the past decade at Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, and Celera Genomics.
Stephane Bancel , founding president and CEO of Moderna, said: “John has long been on the forefront of the information revolution that is reshaping drug development and healthcare, and he has a strong vision for how we can design an information resource capable of propelling Moderna – and the entire field of messenger RNA therapeutics – well into the future.”
And the news comes just weeks after Moderna appointed Henri Termeer, Genzyme's retired chairman, president, and CEO to its board.
Over to cancer stem-cell discoverers and developers Verastem, and the company has appointed Jack Green as Chief Financial Officer.
Previously, Green was the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of GTC Biotherapeutics (formerly Genzyme Transgenics Corporation) and CEO of Verastem, Dr. Christoph Westphal said: “Jack’s track record of leadership will be of tremendous value as we progress into late-stage clinical trials for our cancer stem cell-targeting compounds.”
And finally this week we have news from newly launched Syros Pharmaceuticals who has appointedDr. Eric Olsen as Chief Scientific Officer.
Olson has over 25 years of experience in the industry, most recently as Research Vice President for respiratory diseases at Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Nancy Simonian, Syros’s CEO said of the new CSO: “The combination of his deep scientific expertise, his understanding for translating science into drugs that actually help people, and his experience creating real value for shareholders is extraordinary. It fits perfectly with Syros' mission.”
