Former Hospira boss joins Alcon as Novartis makes senior leadership changes
pharmafile | January 27, 2016 | Appointment | |Â Â NovartisÂ
Swiss firm Novartis has announced several leadership changes, effective February 1, 2016.
In a briefing to present the company’s financial results, 2016 outlook and corporate restructuring, Novartis also announced the appointments of Mike Ball as division head and chief executive of Alcon, succeeding Jeff George; Vas Narasimhan as global head of drug development and chief medical officer, and Andre Wyss as president of Novartis operations.
Ball will be a member of the executive committee of Novartis (ECN), and joins from Hospira, where he was chief executive from 2011 until recently. Prior to Hospira, he spent five years as president of Allergan, where he held a series of leadership positions over 16 years with the company. He succeeds Jeff George, who has decided to leave Novartis.
Dr Narasimhan has been appointed global head drug development and chief medical officer, a new position in the ECN. In this position, he will have functional oversight for drug development for general medicines, ophthalmology pharmaceuticals, oncology and biosimilars.
Andre Wyss, already a member of the ECN, head of Novartis Business Services and country president for Switzerland, has been appointed president of Novartis Operations. In his new role, he will assume responsibility for the integrated technical operations organisation as well as for global public and government affairs, in addition to his current responsibilities.
Commenting on the leadership changes, Jimenez says: “I want to welcome Mike Ball as Division Head and CEO of Alcon. His expertise in ophthalmology, as well as medical devices, will be instrumental in accelerating innovation and growth at Alcon.
“I also want to thank Jeff George for his contributions to Alcon and Sandoz over the past ten years. In addition, I want to congratulate Vas Narasimhan on his expanded role as the first global head of drug development and chief medical officer at Novartis and Andre Wyss on his expanded responsibilities managing global technical operations.”
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