Andy Busch joins Shire as its CSO and head of research and development

Shire has appointed Andy Busch as its new executive vice president, head of research and development, and chief scientific officer.

Busch, who is currently head of drug discovery for Bayer, where he leads a team of approximately 3,300 researchers. During his 13 years at Bayer he held several roles, including senior vice president, head discovery Europe at Bayer Healthcare and executive vice president, global head drug discovery.

Flemming Ornskov, chief executive officer, Shire, said: “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.”

“We look forward to Andy enabling us to further accelerate our ability to discovery novel treatments for our innovative rare disease pipeline.”

Prior to his time at Bayer, Busch was global head of cardiovascular research at Hoechst and Sanofi-Aventis and before that he led independent research groups as a Heisenberg fellow at the University of Tubingen and the Max-Planck-Institute for experimental medicine in Gottingen.

He said: “I am excited by the opportunity to lead the research and development function for Shire, which has developed and brought to market numerous high-impact medicines targeting underserved patient populations,”

“This is a unique time to join Shire, as it has built an industry-leading pipeline of rare disease programmes in recent years and has a sharp focus on serial innovation in areas of significant patient need.”

Meanwhile, Shire has promoted its current senior vice president and interim head of R&D Howard Mayer to chief medical officer.

Mayer joined the biotech back in 2012 and has been responsible for global clinical development across immunology, hereditary angioedema, haematology, ophthalmology, oncology and neuroscience to name a few.

Ornskov said: “Howard is an established leader at Shire and in the industry, with extensive clinical development and regulatory experience across a variety of therapeutic areas.

“He has been an integral component to building and advancing Shire’s pipeline and I am confident he will thrive in his new role.”