AstraZeneca appoints new chief medical officer and development head

AstraZeneca has announced the appointment of Dr Sean Bohen as its new executive vice-president of global medicines development and chief medical officer, effective as of September 15th 2015.

Dr Bohen is joining AstraZeneca from Genentech, where he was most recently employed as senior vice-president of early development, overseeing preclinical and clinical development programmes across all therapy areas.

At AstraZeneca, he will be tasked with driving the progress of the company's portfolio of small molecules and biologics investigational medicines from late-stage development through to regulatory approval.

Meanwhile, in his position as chief medical officer, he will be responsible for patient safety across the entire AstraZeneca and Medimmune portfolio.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive officer of AstraZeneca, said: "I’m delighted to welcome Sean to AstraZeneca at a very exciting time for our company. Our continued strategic investment in science is driving momentum across all therapy areas."

This follows the recent appointment of Pam Cheng as the company's new executive vice-president for operations and IT.