March 2022 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 34-35
// APPOINTMENTS //
Appointments
Mover of the Month
Richard Meddings CBE has been confirmed as the new Chair of NHS England.
Meddings previously served on the HM Treasury Board and as Chair of TSB Bank, and is a Non-executive Director at Credit Suisse. As Chair of NHS England he will be focusing on the health service’s recovery from the pandemic and expanding its workforce. Throughout his career Meddings has led change and reform at the highest levels, and has a strong record of achievement.
The role of NHS England Chair is appointed by the Health and Social Care Secretary in accordance with the Cabinet Office Code of Governance for Public Appointments.
Elisabeth Mozel-Jury has been appointed Vice President, Strategy and Business Development within AXON’s Clinical Studies practice.
Mozel-Jury was formerly a Director in the Public Relations team at AXON and has two decades of healthcare strategy and communications expertise. As a long-standing member of the AXON and AVENIR GLOBAL family, she has worked across multiple geographies for the company over the past 18 years and will continue to work based in the state-of-the-art office at Riverside House, London. The transatlantic clinical studies team will work collaboratively to better provoke change.
MSD has announced that Ben Lucas has succeeded David Peacock as Managing Director of MSD UK and Ireland. Lucas joins the UK business from MSD in the Netherlands where he has held the position of Managing Director for the last three years.
He started his career working with elite athletes as an exercise physiologist at the Institute of Sport, Newcastle before joining MSD in 1999 in his first role in pharmaceuticals and progressed through to sales and marketing roles. He was instrumental in building the MSD Oncology Franchise in the UK & Ireland, pioneering solutions to accelerate access to new innovative medicines for UK patients.
Mdgroup has appointed Steph Katz as Director of its subsidiary, Seacole Health, bringing the company’s mobile health and clinical research staff resourcing under one roof. Having started as an oncology nurse in intensive care units, Katz achieved her MSN in Nursing Education and began training research coordinators, clinical nurses and fellows. She then took on a management role, helping to develop and operationalise institutional, federal and commercial clinical research projects before pursuing an MBA
DFE Pharma has appointed Martti Hedman as its new Chief Executive Officer. An experienced business leader, Hedman succeedes Bas van Driel and assumed responsibilities in February.
Hedman has many years of global business leadership experience in the pharma industry, having lived and held executive positions in the United States, the UK, Germany and Finland. As former CEO of Colorcon, a global developer of specialty excipients for solid oral dosages for the pharmaceutical and nutritional industries, he is well known in the industry.
Gisela Abbam has been appointed Chair of the General Pharmaceutical Council. She takes over from the current Chair, Nigel Clarke, who has been in position since 2014 and has completed the statutory maximum eight years in office.
Abbam has a wealth of experience in delivering change in the health and life sciences sector, both in the UK and globally. She has a particular interest in improving access to and equality in global health and development.
Roland Kreissig has been appointed to the role of Oncology General Manager, Novartis UK and Ireland.
Kreissig joins the UK organisation following a 17-year career within Novartis, where his priorities have been addressing the barriers to access for innovative oncology treatments and driving a truly unified culture within the company.
As a trained physician, his dedication to the care of people is a vital part of his role and his leadership.
Supporting the Novartis ambition to reimagine medicine, he will be leading the UK team to finalise an organisational transformation that embraces a move to new external engagement models supported by data and digital.
Jeane Freeman – the former Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport in the Scottish Government – has joined the University of Glasgow in a key role within the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences.
She will bring a wealth of expertise in community engagement to the university and will play an active role in the pioneering £91m Living Laboratory project in Govan which, in collaboration with the NHS and industry partners, will see the acceleration of game-changing research into real-world clinical settings.
Bayer has appointed Christine Roth as Head of the Oncology Strategic Business Unit at its Pharmaceuticals Division. Roth will succeed Robert LaCaze who decided to pursue other career opportunities.
Her prior positions include executive and senior level positions at GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Bristol Myers Squibb, with a focus on global product strategy and commercialisation, building oncology organisations and new product launches.
Enterprise Therapeutics has appointed Dr Niyati Prasad as Chief Medical Officer. With her extensive experience in respiratory drug development, Dr Prasad will offer UK-based support to lead the continued advancement of the company’s clinical programmes.
Enterprise is developing novel disease-modifying therapies to restore lung function and reduce morbidity and mortality in chronic respiratory diseases like cystic fibrosis.
Dr Prasad joins Enterprise with over 20 years’ experience at the forefront of global clinical programmes focusing on immunology, respiratory and rare diseases, having most recently been Senior Director of Clinical Development at GSK. Prior to this she held various leadership roles at leading biopharmaceutical organisations, including Galapagos, Vertex, Takeda and Novartis.
LEO Pharma has appointed Christophe Bourdon at the new Chief Executive Officer, effective from 1 April 2022. Bourdon joins the company from Orphazyme A/S where he held the position of CEO, following significant global leadership roles in both Amgen and Alexion.
His previous roles include Senior Vice President, General Manager, US Oncology Business, at US biotech Amgen Inc. where he also led commercialisation planning of top-selling drugs on the global market.
Prior to Amgen, Bourdon was Senior Vice President of Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Canada at Alexion as the company launched two breakthrough ultra-orphan drugs and negotiated payer access across UK, Germany, France, Italy and Canada. He holds an MBA from IMD Business School (Switzerland) and a BA from ISG (France).
Dr Keith Ridge CBE has retired after 16 years as the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England. The Chair and Chief Executive of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) have thanked him for his major contribution to pharmacy during his time in the role.
Meanwhile, they have also welcomed David Webb, who succeeds Dr Ridge as the next Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England.
Webb will be a member of NHS England and NHS Improvement Medical Directorate’s senior management team, the UK Government Chief Medical Officer’s senior clinical group. He will also become Head of the Pharmacy Professions in England and the principal advisor on pharmacy and medicines use in the NHS, which includes supporting the Department of Health and Social Care.