News from Bayer, Valeant and Eisai – People on the move
First up this week is Bayer who has announced Dr. Herbert Heitmann will head the newly created Communications and Government Relations unit from September.
Heitmann is currently Executive Vice President of External Communications at Royal Dutch Shell and replaces Michael Schade who leaves the company in order to become Managing Director of Bundesliga football club Bayer Leverkusen.
And Bayer has recently extended its services contract deal with DKSH in Cambodia. Read about it on our sister website here.
And Bayer’s Head of Specialty Medicine and Institutional Business for the company's Mexican operations, Ricardo Gonzalez Balboa has left and been appointed to the position of General Manager at Eisai’s Mexican subsidiary.
Gonzalez Balboa spent ten years with Roche prior to Bayer and before that he held financial analyst and business planning positions with Bristol-Myers Squibb's Mexican operations.
VP of Eisai Latin America Douglas Calandra said: “We are confident that he is the right leader to build our Mexican organization, and to help further our human health care mission within this important country.”
Next is news from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. Dr. Laurence Paul - who served on the Board of Directors at Biovail Corporation in June 2002 and continued to serve as the company merged with Valeant in 2010 - has resigned due to expanded business, philanthropic, and personal commitments.
J. Michael Pearson, Chairman and CEO at Valeant thanked Paul for over a decade of service, adding: “Larry has been a superb Board member for Valeant, investing his valuable time, talent, and passion to help transform Biovail and Valeant into a leading pharmaceutical company. Larry's wise counsel will be missed.”
Zosano Pharma has announced the appointment of Nandan Oza as the company’s Chief Operations Officer, in charge of the company’s efforts in manufacturing, quality and engineering.
Oza has previously worked at a number of companies including Talon Therapeutics, Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Connetics Corporation (now part of GSK).
According to company CEO Vikram Lamba: “His operational and manufacturing experience and expertise – as well as his leadership experience – will be critical in preparing Zosano for our next stage of commercial-scale manufacturing as we drive our clinical programs towards the marketplace.”
Next we have news that former U.S. Senator John Sununu has been appointed to the Board of Directors at Rib-X Pharmaceuticals.
Sunuu served as Senator for New Hampshire between 2003 and 2009 after entering public service in 1996. Prior to this he worked for several emerging high-tech firms and was the CFO of Teletrol Systems.
“His unique combination of policy, financial, and technical experience will be enormously valuable to Rib-X at a pivotal time for the Company,” said Rib-X CEO Mary Szela. “I am excited to welcome John to the Rib-X team and look forward to his contributions as we advance our pipeline of novel antibiotic candidates, including the initiation of multiple pivotal studies with our broad spectrum antibiotic, delafloxacin.”
And finally this week, Professor Sir Michael Rawlins has been appointed to the Board of Directors at Intra-Cellular Therapies.
Rawlins, a renowned figure in the field of drug safety, clinical effectiveness and cost effectiveness, has been Chairman of the UK's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) from 1999 (at its inception) through March 2013.
“We are excited to have Sir Michael Rawlins join our board,” said Dr. Sharon Mates, CEO of Intra-Cellular Therapies. “His expertise in the cost-effectiveness of new pharmaceuticals and other issues in health economics will be invaluable to Intra-Cellular Therapies. I look forward to working closely with Michael as we transition our clinical programs through late-stage development and commercial approval.”
