Asia Executives To Watch: Takeda China GM To Depart, Japan Has New MHLW Minister
Executive Summary
Another China GM is leaving. Meanwhile, Japan has a new Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare, and China FDA gets a new deputy commissioner.
(Asia Executives To Watch is a regular column highlighting industry personnel changes in the Asia-Pacific region. The previous column covers FDA's new India head. (Also see "Asia Executives To Watch: FDA Names New India Director" - Scrip, 7 Jul, 2017.) Send your announcements to Brian Yang.)
Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Vice President and Area Head, Greater China, Pony Lu is leaving, the company confirmed in an e-mail statement.
Citing Lu's personal decision to pursue other career opportunities, Takeda said Lu's last day at the company is Sept 29. The company will be looking for a replacement and expects no material impact to the business.
Lu became the area head early this year after former head Akira Noguchi left the position.
Lu has been the Takeda China President since 2014. That was after he was named General Manager, Takeda China International Trading Company, in 2013; he originally was named General Manager, Takeda China, in 2012.
Lu started his career with French drug maker Servier SA in 2003 when he was the deputy operations manager based in Beijing and Paris, and later became GM for Servier China.
Japan MHLW
Katsunobu Kato became Japan's new Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW). During his inaugural speech, Minister Kato expressed his intention to maintain a sustainable and secure social safety net by increasing social security payouts by year.
Kato formerly was head of the "Hundred Million Society Project," a component of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Abenomics Plan to stimulate growth by providing child support, securing social security and senior care.
Meanwhile, Michiyo Takaki and Hideki Makihara have been appointed as the new vice ministers of MHLW. Takaki was former deputy Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, while Makihara was deputy commissioner in charge of Policy at ruling Japan Liberal Democratic Party.
During her first public appearance in the new capacity, Takaki said the priority is to provide a secure social network amid the aging population and lower childbirth rate.
Two newly appointed deputy MHLW ministers are Hiroaki Tabada and Mizuho Onuma, formerly members of Japanese congress, the National Diet.
CFDA
China FDA has appointed Sun Meijun as deputy commissioner in charge of food safety. Sun started her career at the China Statistics Bureau and later was director of the rural region. She later joined the State Council's Food Safety Office as the legal affairs director. Since 2013, she has been the policy director for the China FDA.
Since March, she has been the food safety director and secretary general for the State Council's Food Safety Office. In July, she became the deputy commissioner for CFDA.
CFDA is led by Commissioner Bi Jingquan, and deputy commissioners Wu Zhen, who oversees overall drug safety; Jiao Hong, who oversees medical devices; Sun Xianze (drug safety) and Sun Meijun.
Former assistant director for the FDA China office Gang Wang has become the chief Compliance Inspection Scientist at CFDA.
Hengrui, Ascentage
Sean Zhang, former senior medical director, bio transitional medicine, clinical development at GlaxoSmithKline PLC has become the site head, board member and chief medical officer at Hengrui Therapeutics Inc., a subsidiary of Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co. Ltd.
Ascentage Pharma Group Corp. Ltd. appointed Li Hanzhong as its chief financial officer, in charge of financing, business development and corporate strategy. Li previously worked for Bayer AG as its global market strategy director and before that as a biopharma analyst at Morgan Stanley for eight years.
Li is tasked to expand Ascentage product pipelines rapidly.
From the editors of PharmAsia News