The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has appointed Dr Wajid Hussain as its new clinical director for digital health.
Dr Hussain, a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysicist at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, has a demonstrated interest in IT and health.
While he currently represents the views of clinicians on the Trust’s IT committee, Dr Hussain completed a Diploma in Digital Health Leadership at the NHS Digital Academy last year. He is also currently studying for a Master’s in Digital Health leadership at Imperial College London.
Dr Reshma Kewalramani has been made the new Vertex CEO.
Vertex’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Kewalramani will succeed current CEO Jeffrey Leiden who has is now stepping aside from the role after seven years as Chief executive at the Boston-based firm. In stepping down Leiden will serve as executive chairman until the first quarter of 2023.
Fourty-six year old Dr Kewalramani, who has been at Vertex since 2017, will thus become the first woman to head the firm. Prior to joining Vertex, Kewalramani spent more than 12 years at Amgen.
Lilly veteran Christi Shaw has joined Kite Pharma as the company’s new CEO.
Shaw comes to Gilead’s cancer immunotherapy firm, Kite Pharma, from rival US firm Eli Lilly, where she acted as a senior vice president and also as president of Lilly’s immunology, pain and neuroscience unit, Lilly Bio Medicines.
Business chief Jonathan Symonds has joined British multinational GlaxoSmithKline as the company’s new non-executive chairman.
The hire ends GSK’s six month search, as it prepares to fold its consumer business into a joint venture with Pfizer. In his new role Symonds will oversee the changes being implemented by CEO Emma Walmsley who joined GSK in 2017. Walmsley hopes to revitalise GSK’s R&D efforts with the help of Chief Scientific Officer Hal Barron.
His decision to leave the association marks the end of a three-year run beginning in March 2016, when stepped in to take up the mantle from Alison Clough, who had served as the acting Chief Executive for much of 2015.
Massachusetts-based biotech Disarm Therapeutics has hired Dr Alvin Shih as their new President and CEO.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based firm has set itself the task of creating a new class of disease-modifying therapeutics for patients with axonal degeneration, a central drive of neurological disease.
Dr Shih brings to the role a range of experiences. Having graduated with a biology degree from Vanderbilt University in 1996, Shih joined management consultancy McKinsey where he worked as a business analyst for two years.
Gilead has said that Dr John McHutchison is stepping down after nine years at the firm.
Gilead’s Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Research and Development has decided to leave the company next month, Gilead said.
Under McHutchinson, Gilead developed five new hepatitis drugs, which have been used by as many as 3.2 million people around the world.
British multinational GlaxoSmithKline have hired computational drug design expert Dr Kim Branson as the company’s new Senior Vice President, Global Head of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
In his new role, the biotech veteran will oversee projects which use AI to identify novel targets for potential medicines.
Dr Branson brings to the role more than 15 years’ worth of experience in biotech and academia having held positions at a number of Silicon Valley firms including Gliimpse, Lumia and Hessian Informatics.
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