AstraZeneca announces retirement of executive director

AstraZeneca has today announced that John Patterson, executive director of development, will retire from the company in March 2009.

Resulting from the shift in personnel will be the appointing of Anders Ekblom to the role of executive vice-president of development, with effect from January 1st next year.

During the formation of AstraZeneca, Mr Patterson became executive vice-president of product strategy and licensing, before then going on to business development. In December 2004, he was appointed as executive director on the company’s main board.

AstraZeneca chief executive officer, David Brennan, said: “John has made an important and lasting contribution to the business over the course of his career with AZ [AstraZeneca]. Under his leadership, the productivity and efficiency of AstraZeneca?s drug development has improved significantly.”

Mr Ekblom joined the company in 1993, having formerly been a senior lecturer and director for the Perianesthetic Unit at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm.

AstraZeneca’s sales in 2007 totalled $29.6 billion (18.77 billion pounds), with a profit of nine billion dollars.

The company employs 67,000 people and has a corporate office in London, along with major research and development sites in Sweden, the US and the UK.