(Reuters) – Germany’s No. 2 drugmaker, Boehringer Ingelheim, on Friday appointed as chief executive Hubertus von Baumbach, a great-grandson of founder Albert Boehringer, putting a member of the family at the helm for the first time in 25 years.
Von Baumbach, 48, is currently Boehringer’s finance chief and will replace CEO Andreas Barner, 62, when he retires on June 30, 2016, the unlisted family-owned group said in a statement.
“Hubertus von Baumbach knows the corporation and its various divisions and his time on the Board of Managing Directors has prepared him well for the company’s future challenges,” shareholders’ committee chairman Christian Boehringer said.
“Along with colleagues on the Board of Managing Directors, he will continue the drive for change at Boehringer Ingelheim in order to secure the company’s independence in the long term,” he added.
After his retirement, Barner will join the shareholders’ committee, which is comparable to a corporate supervisory board. (Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Maria Sheahan; editing by Jason Neely)
A monkeypox outbreak is emerging in the U.S. and Europe, and at least one country is amping up countermeasure preparedness. Bavarian Nordic has secured a contract with an unnamed European country to supply its smallpox vaccine, called Imvanex in Europe, in response to the emergence of monkeypox cases, the Danish company said Thursday.
Moderna’s recent chief financial officer debacle—in which Jorge Gomez departed on his second day on the job—raised questions about the company’s hiring process given its rush to global biopharma prominence. The most obvious one: How was it possible for Gomez to be hired when he was under investigation by his previous employer, Dentsply Sirona of Charlotte, N.C.
Merck & Co. is plucking a cancer project from the branch of Chinese-based Kelun Pharmaceutical for up to $1.4 billion, but details from the New Jersey-based Big Pharma have been hard to come by. The deal, first disclosed Monday on the Shenzhen stock exchange, has Merck handing over $47 million in upfront cash in exchange for ex-China rights to a “macromolecular tumor project.”
