After penning research deals potentially worth billions of dollars this month, German pharma Bayer is looking internally as it rings in the changes.
In a major reorganization, Bayer says it will be combining its pharma R&D unit under one division and under one leader in a change-up reminiscent of what fellow European pharma Novartis did last year.
Joerg Moeller, currently head of development at Bayer’s pharmaceuticals division, will become that one leader, officially set to be the new head of research and development, and will start on New Year’s Day.
Andreas Busch, the head of drug discovery within the pharmaceuticals division of Bayer, will be leaving for “another company,” the company said in a statement, but would not say which one. He’s been in that position since 2014 and started at Bayer all the way back in 1993.
The new unit will combine all R&D activities for therapeutic areas across the board within the company’s pharmaceuticals division, including cardiology, gynecology, ophthalmology, hematology and oncology research .
“The combined organization will enable us to seamlessly steer all the important activities of Research and Development, with a single objective to further enhance the delivery of much needed new treatment options to patients,” explained Dieter Weinand, president of Bayer’s pharmaceuticals division.
“Joerg has an exceptional track record of bringing new medicines to patients, which have the potential to increase their quality of life and address serious medical conditions, and I trust that our team will be even more successful in doing so together under his leadership. At the same time, we thank Andreas Busch for all his valuable contributions to our company and wish him much success in his future endeavors.”
This comes in the same month that Bayer has been making some big bets in R&D, paying a few weeks back $400 million (€340 million) and putting a potential $1 billion more on the table to buy into Loxo Oncology’s tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) inhibitor franchise.
Just a week later, it signed a new and potentially major research pact with Japan’s PeptiDream, using its tech to find macrocyclic/constrained peptides against a whole load of targets.
By Ben Adams
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