Shire Names Bayer’s Andreas Busch as Head of R&D, CSO

Rare Daily Staff

Rare disease giant Shire named Andreas Busch, head of drug discovery and a member of the executive committee for the pharmaceuticals division of Bayer, as executive vice president, head of research and development and chief scientific officer effective in January.

He will replace Howard Mayer, who has been serving as interim head of research and development for Shire. Mayer will become chief medical officer in January.

“Andy is an outstanding scientist with extensive experience leading research and development functions, and an established track record of building broad portfolios that encompass both biologics and small molecules,” said Flemming Ornskov, CEO of Shire. “We look forward to Andy enabling us to further accelerate our ability to discover novel treatments for our innovative rare disease pipeline.”

At Bayer, Busch has lead a team of 3,300 researchers. During his 13 years with the company, he has held roles of increasing responsibility, including Senior Vice President, Head Discovery Europe at Bayer HealthCare and Executive Vice President, Global Head Drug Discovery. Busch was responsible for the Schering drug discovery integration, the overall R&D strategy and enforced the improvement of Bayer’s research productivity.

Prior to joining Bayer, Busch was global head of cardiovascular research at Hoechst and Sanofi-Aventis. Prior to that, he led independent research groups as a Heisenberg fellow at the University of Tübingen and the Max-Planck-Institute for experimental Medicine in Göttingen.

“This is a unique time to join Shire, as it has built an industry-leading pipeline of rare disease programs in recent years and has a sharp focus on serial innovation in areas of significant patient need,” said Busch. “I believe there is tremendous opportunity to accelerate this effort and look forward to leading this talented R&D team.”

December 4, 2017