Pfizer names new R&D leaders
pharmafile | May 7, 2015 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | John Lin, Michael Ehlers, Pfizer, rinat
Pfizer has confirmed two key appointments to lead its worldwide research and development organisation with immediate effect.
The firm will be hoping this fresh talent can eventually yield more sales and arrive in the wake of its latest financial results that displayed its second consecutive quarterly income decline.
Dr Michael Ehlers has been named as its group senior VP and head of BioTherapeutics R&D and site head for Pfizer’s Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts locations in the US. Ehlers will be reporting directly to Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s president of R&D.
Ehlers will continue to be chief scientific officer of Pfizer’s neuroscience and pain research unit and will oversee the entire BioTherapeutics R&D organisation. In connection with this appointment, its inflammation and immunology research business will move to Pfizer’s PharmaTherapeutics R&D wing.
“It’s a privilege to see extraordinary scientific talent rise to the opportunity to grow within our organisation and lead the future of Pfizer’s key R&D areas” says Dolsten. “Mike is a world-class talent who has made significant contributions in advancing our neuroscience research efforts and is now poised to lead BioTherapeutics R&D into the next era of potential breakthroughs for patients, not only in neuroscience and pain, but in rare diseases, and also at Pfizer’s centers for therapeutic innovation.”
Prior to joining Pfizer in 2010, Ehlers spent 12 years as the George Barth Geller Professor of Neurobiology and as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Duke University.
He succeeds José-Carlos Gutiérrez-Ramos at the company, who has decided to return to the biotech sector in the Cambridge area.
In addition, John Lin has been chosen as the firm’s senior VP and chief scientific officer of Rinat (Pfizer’s biotech unit in California). Lin will report to Robert Abraham who is group senior VP for oncology-Rinat R&D at the US giant.
Lin joined Rinat in 2002 and continued in his role when the biotech was bought out by Pfizer in 2006. Since 2011, he has served as vice president of experimental medicine at Rinat with responsibility for overseeing its immuno-oncology and discovery and validation biology efforts.
Lin succeed Dr Jaume Pons who left Rinat earlier this year to become president and chief executive of Alexo Therapeutics.
“John’s expertise in advancing differentiated antibody programmes in both oncology and non-oncology indications is at the core of Rinat’s proven track-record of bringing potential therapies such as tanezumab, ponezumab and bococizumab into the clinic,” says Abraham.
These new leader appointments arrive just behind news that Professor Charles Reay Mackay is joining the pharma giant as the chief scientific officer of its inflammation and immunology research unit.
Brett Wells
Related Content
NICE recommends Pfizer’s new once-weekly treatment for haemophilia B on NHS
Walton Oaks, 21st May 2025 – Pfizer Ltd announced today that the National Institute for Health and Care …
Pfizer releases results for severe RSV-associated LRTD treatment study
US-based Pfizer have announced results from its substudy B of the ongoing phase 3 clinical …
New Real-World Data Published in Journal of Cardiac Failure on Effectiveness
Patients treated with tafamidis were associated with greater rates of survival compared with patients untreated …
