Asia On The Move – Personnel News From Key Players In The Region

The start of 2013 has seen a flurry of high-level personnel moves. The shake-ups in AstraZeneca will see exits of its R&D president and EVP for commercial, and Astellas will reorganize global management.

Asia On The Move is an occasional column highlighting personnel changes in Asia Pacific. The previous issues covered Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Mindray Medical International Ltd. (Also see "Asia On The Move: Personnel News From Key Players In The Region" - Scrip, 21 Nov, 2012.); and Bayer AG and China’s State FDA (Also see "Asia On The Move: Personnel News From Key Players In The Region" - Scrip, 20 Dec, 2012.).

Senior Management at Big Pharma

Astellas Pharma Inc. announced Feb. 5 it will create a new position for chief medical officer, effective April 1. Sef Kurstjens, the current CEO of Agensys Inc., will assume the role.

Astellas announced the same day a reorganization of its global pharmacovigilance operations. The company will create a global pharmacovigilance head position, to be based in Northbrook, Illinois, as will new positions for global heads clinical research quality assurance and regulatory affairs. A new position for global quality assurance head will be based at the headquarters in Tokyo. Astellas has yet to identify employees for the new positions, which assume responsibilities April 1.

AstraZeneca PLC’s new CEO Pascal Soriot Jan. 15 announced a series of high-level personnel shakeups:

The positions held by Martin Mackay, president of research and development, and by Tony Zook, EVP of global commercial, have been eliminated and both men left the company at the end of January.

The current general manger for AstraZeneca China, Mark Mallon will become the new EVP of International, overseeing commercial activities for Asia Pacific, Russia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa (Also see "What Will AstraZeneca Executive Reshuffle Mean For Asia And Emerging Markets?" - Scrip, 17 Jan, 2013.).

Soriot also created three senior R&D roles:

Mene Pangalos will take charge of discovery and early-stage development in small molecules, Bahija Jallal, former EVP of vaccine unit at MedImmune LLC, will oversee discovery and early stage development in biologics, and Briggs Morrison will lead the global medicines development.

Steve Yang, AstraZeneca head of R&D for Asia and Emerging Markets, will report to Pangalos and join his executive R&D team.

AstraZeneca will also appoint an EVP for Global Portfolio and Product Strategy at a later date.

In Japan, AstraZeneca Japan President Masahiro Kato became the company chairman, and Kohei Onosaki became director of Corporate Affairs and Public Relations.

Novartis AG ophthalmology subsidiary Alcon Inc. Jan. 11 named Seiichiro Matsumura as general manager of Alcon Japan; current GM Tom Dooley is retiring. Matsumura was GE Healthcare executive in charge of its ultrasound business in Asia Pacific. Former CIBA Vision Japan president Hedekazu Hayakawa was appointed as corporate advisor.

Novartis is planning to consolidate the Japanese subsidiaries of Alcon and Ciba Vision Corp. by the end of FY2013.

AbbVie Inc., the newly established spin-off of Abbott Laboratories Inc., has appointed Gary M. Winer as CEO for its Japanese subsidiary. Other appointments are:

• Toshihiro Kato as director of Development Strategy for Emerging Markets,
• Diego Rodrigues as director of Immunology Business,
• Hisaharu Hirai as director of Specialty Pharmaceutical Division,
• Kunihiro Yoshitomi as director of External Relations for Medical Policy,
• Yasuaki Nagata as director of Business Strategy Support,
• Roland Ramirez as director of Finance,
• Seiichi Shimada as director of Business Development,
• Mari Kikuchi as director of Compliance,
• Kazuyuki Hatakeyama as director of General Medical Affairs,
• Yojiro Sato as director of Pharmaceutical Affairs, and
• Kenji Nonaka as director of Development.

Abbott Japan named Thomas C. Freeman as its chief financial officer and Akihiko Honda as director of Pharmaceutical Business for Established Products Division (EPD).

Indian Pharma Reshuffle

India’s top drug maker Cipla Ltd. is increasingly relying on senior level executives from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Seven months after roping in Frank Pieters, formerly Teva’s senior VP for Southern Europe, to lead its European ambitions, Cipla has now turned to Timothy Crew, another experienced Teva hand, placing him as a key member for its U.S. operations. Crew led the generics business of Teva for the Americas before a management reshuffle last year resulted in that position going to Allan Oberman, who headed Eastern Europe, Israel, Middle-east and Africa at the time (Also see "India’s Top Drug Maker Cipla Ropes In Teva’s Tim Crew As U.S. Plans Take Shape" - Scrip, 24 Jan, 2013.).

Cipla has also hired Subhanu Saxena, who has experience as a top executive with Novartis AG’s UK organization, as its next CEO.

Regulators

China State FDA appointed Jinjing Zhang as the inspector for the Bureau of Supplementary Diet Foods and Cosmetics, Enxue Cui as the inspector for the Investigation Bureau

SFDA also hired Lingling Yang as deputy editor-in-chief for China Pharmaceutical News, a newspaper under SFDA’s supervision. The initial contract is one year.

Associations

China Medical Association elected Yanling Zhang as the new president. Zhang was president of No.2 Military Medical University and Minister of Health at People’s Liberation Army.

[Editor’s Note: PharmAsia News brings you appointments, changes and other news about people in the pharmaceutical industry in Asia. Click here to submit announcements to Brian Yang.]