Welcome to this week's Chutes and Ladders, our roundup of hirings, firings and retirings throughout the industry. Please send the good word--or the bad--from your shop to Eric Sagonowsky (email) or Angus Liu (email), and we will feature it here at the end of each week.
Pfizer’s EVP Maddaluna is retiring after 41 years with the company
Pfizer
Anthony Maddaluna, EVP and president of global supply, is retiring.
Pfizer’s executive vice president and president of global supply, Anthony J. Maddaluna, is retiring from the pharma giant after more than 41 years with the company. Succeeding Maddaluna is Kirsten Lund-Jurgensen, current VP of innovative health product portfolio management and consumer operations, effective the end of this year. Lund-Jurgensen is herself a Pfizer vet who joined the company from SmithKline Beecham in 1999 as VP of pharmaceuticals’ global supply chain management. FiercePharmaManufacturing
Taro taps Sun Pharma CFO as new CEO
Taro
Uday Baldota has been appointed new CEO.
If you still remember the high-profile merger battle between Taro and Sun Pharma a few years ago, you’ll know that it eventually didn’t go through, as the two parties announced termination of the merger agreement back in February 2013. Now that Sun owns 71.9% of Taro’s stock, the exec exchanges between the two is back on our radar. Taro just recently appointed Uday Baldota, current EVP and CFO of Sun Pharma, as its new CEO. In July, Taro announced that Kal Sundaram, the company’s current CEO is stepping down by the end of this year. Where is he going? Surprise, it’s Sun Pharma’s global headquarters, where he’ll assume an executive position. Later, an interim CEO was appointed by Taro to fill the gap between Sundaram’s departure and Baldota’s arrival around April next year. That person is none other than Sun Pharma’s North America CEO Abhay Gandhi. There are more serious problems awaiting the CEOs. The most pressing one is the upcoming DOJ price increase investigation, and subpoenas have already reached Taro and two senior execs. Release | Read more from FiercePharma
GSK promotes Thomas Willemsen as new China head
GlaxoSmithKline
Thomas Willemsen will become GM of GSK China.
It has been years since GlaxoSmithKline handed over a record-high $490 million fine to settle a bribery scandal with the Chinese authorities. At that time, it was Herve Gisserot who took over from then China captain Mark Reilly back in 2013 and led the company through the critical investigation and recovery phases; and now, he is moving upward to become head of pharmaceuticals for the Asia-Pacific region. The weight of leading the company’s Chinese chapter into further growth now becomes the responsibility of the company’s newly appointed China head Thomas Willemsen, formerly deputy of that section. Even though GSK is, according to outgoing CEO Andrew Witty, “back into the growth,” since its sales in China grew about 24% in the third quarter, pricing pressure is still intense, and the company just recently cut hepatitis B drug price in China by about two thirds. To make things worse, against its strong will to put this bribery drama behind, a private investigator couple involved in the case sued GSK for misleading them and thus led to their imprisonment in China. FiercePharma
> Novella CEO Richard Staub is to head QuintilesIMS’ R&D solutions unit. FierceCRO
> Prasad Raje will succeed interim head James Matthew as Nanotherapeutics’ new president and CEO. Release
> Novartis’ former head of global oncology William Sellers is resuming a faculty position at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. Story
> Addex appointed industry veteran Dr. Roger Mills as its CMO. Release
> Kite Pharma named Jian Irish its SVP of supply chain. Release
> New microbiome biotech Axial Biotherapeutics launched in Boston and will be led by AbbVie and GSK vet David Donabedian. Story
> Ear disease expert Otonomy appointed Kathie Bishop as CSO. Release
> MediGene AG, a German immune-oncology company focusing on T-cell treatments, named Thomas Taapken, former venture capital expert with Sanofi, as its CFO. Release
> Albireo, a pediatric liver disease expert, appointed Martha J. Carter as its chief regulatory officer. Release