Pfizer announced that Dr. William Pao, M.D., Ph.D., will take on the role of executive vice president and chief development officer as of March 21.
Dr. William Pao/Courtesy of Roche
Pfizer has an awful lot on its plate these days, with the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with German partner BioNTech headed to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for children under the age of five, the recent authorization of its antiviral combo, Paxlovid against COVID-19, and clinical trials beginning to test its Omicron-specific COVID-19 booster.
On top of all that, Pfizer announced that Dr. William Pao, M.D., Ph.D., will take on the role of executive vice president and chief development officer as of March 21. A member of the company’s executive leadership team, he will report to Albert Bourla, chairman and chief executive officer.
Pao will run Pfizer’s global product development activities, which includes the company’s pipeline of drugs for inflammation and immunology, internal medicine, hospital, oncology and rare disease, in addition to regulatory matters in support of Pfizer’s R&D pipeline and currently marketed products. He is replacing Rod MacKenzie, who will retire after 35 years with Pfizer.
“We are delighted to welcome William Pao to our executive leadership team in this crucial role as we enter the next era of innovation at Pfizer,” noted Bourla. “Throughout his impressive career, William has amassed extensive clinical and deep scientific expertise that make him the ideal leader to continue our pursuit of both cutting-edge science and breakthrough medicines and vaccines for the benefit of patients and society.”
Pao is joining Pfizer from Roche, where he was most recently head of pharma research and early development (pRED). He was also a member of the Swiss company’s enlarged corporate executive committee.
Pao earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard and his MD and PhD from Yale University. Prior to joining Roche, he held simultaneous positions as professor of medicine and director of the division of hematology/oncology at Vanderbilt University, and director of personalized cancer medicine at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.
Over at Roche, Pao is being replaced by Dr. Johannes Clevers, M.D., Ph.D., who has been with the Roche board of directors since 2019. Clevers will also become a member of the company’s enlarged corporate executive committee.
Roche’s Chief Executive Officer Severin Schwan said, “William Pao has been instrumental in the transformation of our pRED organization and has significantly strengthened and diversified our research and development portfolio. My sincerest gratitude goes to him for all that he has contributed to Roche and for patients. I wish him only continued success for the future.”
In a statement, Pao said, “Through courage and determination, Pfizer has saved millions of lives through its breakthrough science, especially in the past two years, with the delivery of both a COVID-19 vaccine and treatment. Building on this strong momentum, I am honored to assume the leadership of Pfizer’s Global Product Development organization to help bring the next transformative medicines to the world faster.”
Only yesterday, Pfizer and Ionis Pharmaceuticals reported that Pfizer was returning the rights to the vupanorsen program to Ionis. The drug was being developed for cardiovascular (CV) risk reduction and severe hypertriglyceridemia (SHTG). The two companies entered the licensing deal in November 2019. Although the results from a Phase IIb TRANSLATE-TIMI 70 trial hit the primary endpoint, Pfizer felt that the magnitude of the positive results didn’t support continuing development of the drug.
And only a week ago, Pfizer and OPKO Health received a Complete Response Letter (CRL) from the FDA for somatrogon, a once-weekly human growth hormone being developed for growth hormone deficiency (GHD).
Nonetheless, Pfizer has a lot of room for misfires. The company is projecting $29 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales alone this year and cut a distribution deal with the U.S. government to supply 10 million courses of Paxlovid at the end of 2021.
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