Nordic Life Science 1
THE LATEST LIFE SCIENCE CAREER NEWS FROM THE NORD
IC REGION RICHARD HAUSMANN, President and Chief Executive Officer, has decided to resign for personal reasons with immediate effect. “I am proud to have been part of driving Elekta forward to revolutionize cancer care. I wish Elekta and all its employees every success in the coming years. I now look forward to pursuing my interests and other things in life,” says Hausmann. With almost three decades of experience in the medical device industry, Hausmann has previously held such positions as President and CEO of GE Healthcare’s Global MR Business and President and CEO of the Siemens Healthcare CT division. Under his leadership, Elekta has also advanced its position as a leader in digital health technology crucial to improving cancer survival. Elekta’s Board of Directors has initiated a recruitment process and has appointed Gustaf Salford as Acting President and CEO. Salford has held senior management positions in Elekta for eleven years and before taking on the new position was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. RAFIQ HASAN gained his medical degree in London and has pursued a career in the pharma industry globally, including senior positions with Bayer and Novartis. He has a proven track record of leading global crossfunctional teams to manage multi-billion dollar global franchises and deliver year-on-year sales growth. Most recently, as SVP and Global Head of Ophthalmology at Bayer, Hasan grew the business of Eylea from launch to over USD 2.5 billion in 5 years, including its launch in 5 indications in 3 years. He joins as the GE Healthcare spinout company, reports strong progress in its Firstin-Man ACTivate-trial, investigating ACT combination with standard of care chemotherapy for the treatment of hepatic metastases secondary to colorectal and pancreatic cancers. “I am impressed with the preclinical data where ACT shows efficacy across a range of drugs and disease models, whilst the clinical development is already underway in London, in partnership with the Royal Marsden Hospital/Institute of Cancer Research,” says Hasan. OUTI VAARALA has held the position of Vice President, Oncology Research in Orion’s Research and Development since 10 June 2019. Prior to Orion, Vaarala led drug discovery and development from target identification to clinical Phase 2 studies in the respiratory inflammation and autoimmunity therapy area, first at AstraZeneca, Sweden, and later at Medimmune/AstraZeneca, USA. Vaarala is a medical doctor (University of Helsinki) and has a PhD in immunology. She was appointed Professor of Pediatric Immunology, Linkoping University, Sweden, in 2000, and Professor of Autoimmune Diseases, Lund University, Sweden, in 2015. “Co-operation and international networking is a key to success, because nobody can develop drugs alone. Finland and Orion have a lot to offer for proprietary drug discovery, and at the same time international networking is a crucial part of the operations of Orion’s Research and Development. In my new position, I want to emphasize this,” says Outi Vaarala. MARTY J DUVALL has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Oncopeptides, with Jakob Lindberg assuming the role as Chief Scientific Officer. Lindberg replaces Christian Jacques, who held the position as CSO since 2018. Christian will continue as a Senior Advisor. “Marty will lead the transformation of Oncopeptides into a fully-fledged integrated global biotech company, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden,” says Per Wold-Olsen, Chairman of Oncopeptides. Duvall brings global commercialization skills from executive leadership roles in pharma and biotech, including experience from the oncology and hematology space, most recently as the CEO of Tocagen. “I am excited to to lead the company through its next phase and engage in the commercialization of melflufen,” says Duvall, “I am impressed by Oncopeptides’ strong scientific platform and our compelling phase 2 data. With melflufen, I strongly believe that we have the potential to add significant value for patients with multiple myeloma.” PHOTO MATS LUNDQVIST