Movers and shakers: the biggest pharma hires in 2015

From corporate big-wigs to R&D free thinkers, new hires in the pharmaceutical sector often find themselves in the news. Here are just a handful of 2015’s major movers and shakers

1 - Olivier Brandicourt - CEO, Sanofi

This was one of the highest profile moves of the year. Having sacked CEO Christopher Viehbacher, reportedly over differences in opinion over his management style, the firm sought the expertise of Bayer’s then chairman and CEO to head up the big pharma giant.

A physician by training, Brandicourt's career includes several senior positions in Europe, Canada and the United States. His career has seen him lead the launch of numerous new medicines and the completion of many strategic acquisitions and integrations.

2 - Cornelia Bargmann - Director, AstraZeneca

In a move that demonstrates its preference for technical competence, AstraZeneca appointed a new non-executive director in Cornelia Bargmann back in April.

Her appointment came just as John Varley and Dame Nancy Rothwell announced their retirement.

Bargmann also serves as a neurobiologist at The Rockefeller University, New York studying “the relationships between genes, neural circuits and behaviour using C. elegans, a tiny roundworm, as the model for her work” (taken from her own bio). She was one of the inaugural winners of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for her work in genetics.

3 - Professor Michael Linden - Pfizer

This hire made the headlines for different reasons. Not a board member or corporate governor, Professor Linden was taken on to lead the group’s new gene therapy research centre in London.

Professor Linden had been supporting Pfizer in that area for 11 months on a secondment from King’s College London, but in November he joined the company as a full-time employee. And his responsibility is no small task: his team aim to evaluate the viability of producing effective, clinical grade gene therapy viruses at pace and scale. The Genetic Medicines Institute will seek to develop certain gene therapy pipeline projects in Pfizer’s portfolio.

Professor Linden said: "Gene therapy is the term used to describe a treatment that alters or fixes an anomaly in the genes that causes illness. Unlike many other medicines, gene therapies have the potential to fix the root cause of illness, effectively offering a cure as opposed to managing the cause or lessening the symptoms. I am excited to join Pfizer’s Genetic Medicines Institute full-time where I will have the opportunity to continue to work in collaboration with my former colleagues at King’s College London, as well as other academic partners, in order to further research and ideally generate potential new medicines in this important area."

This is of particular importance in conditions like rare diseases where over 80% have a genetic root. Rare diseases affect 3.5 million people in the UK but unfortunately less than 5% of diseases have any approved therapy.

4 - Vivian Shi, GSK

This hire made headlines for different reasons. Shi left the company back in 2012, but a few months later was named in an internal investigation into the whistleblowing scandal which saw the pharma giant answering questions over bribery claims in China, according to news agency Reuters.

According to Reuters the internal investigation did not prove that Shi had been involved in any whistleblowing claims, and in August 2015 it was announced that Shi had re-joined the company - though short of confirming this, GSK were hazy with any further details.

5 - Dr Robert Califf, FDA

In January, Califf was appointed deputy commissioner of the FDA, and is President Barack Obama's candidate to be the next commissioner. However he made the headlines for his previous controversial ties to Big Pharma, with the New York Times citing "concerns among some public health groups and some Democrats that he is too close to the industry he is being called on to regulate."