Dr Richard Jones has been appointed as chief executive officer for privately-held Swedish biotech firm Akinion Pharmaceuticals.
He brings more than 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience to the company and arrives from Novartis where he was vice president, medicines commercialisation leader, haematology, global oncology.
Before that Dr Jones served at GlaxoSmithKline, where he was most recently VP, global haematology medicines commercialisation leader.
In that role he was responsible for delivering the big pharma company’s global haematology strategy, and prior to he served at Sanofi Genzyme as director and M&A transition lead for its transplant and oncology global business unit.
In his new role at Akinion Pharmaceuticals Dr Jones will oversee a company focused on acute myeloid leukaemia and its lead candidate drug AKN-028, a small molecule kinase inhibitor currently in a phase I/II clinical trial.