People, January, 2011

Following the sudden departure of Jeff Kindler, Ian Read has been appointed chief executive of Pfizer. After receiving his BSc in chemical engineering from Imperial College London, Ian began his career with Pfizer in 1978 as an operational auditor. He worked in Latin America until 1995 and in 1996 he was appointed president of Pfizer's International Pharmaceuticals Group, with responsibility for Latin America and Canada. He became executive vice president, Europe in 2000, was named a corporate vice president in 2001, and assumed responsibility for Canada, in addition to Europe, in 2002, later also becoming responsible for Africa/Middle East and Latin America, and being appointed senior vice president. From 2006 to December 2010, Ian served as group president of the Worldwide Biopharmaceutical Businesses.

Kenneth C Frazier, Merck's president since May and an 18-year veteran of the firm, has been named by the company's board of directors to take on the additional role of chief executive officer, effective January 1. Frazier succeeds Richard T Clark, who became president and CEO in 2005. Frazier took on the role of company president in 2010, focusing largely on the integration of Merck and Schering-Plough after the $49bn merger of the two companies that took place in 2009 under Clark's leadership. Before being named president of the company, Frazier spent three years as president of Merck's global human health division. He began his career with the company in 1992 as vice president, general counsel and secretary of the Astra Merck Group. He made a name for himself as Merck's general counsel during the company's legal troubles after the painkiller Vioxx was withdrawn from the market.

Bristol-Myers Squibb UK has appointed Dr Véronique Walsh as business unit director, neuroscience and immunoscience. Véronique, who will report into Amadou Diarra, vice president and general manager, BMS UK, has 20 years' experience in the vaccines industry. Before joining BMS, she worked at Sanofi Pasteur MSD UK where she was deputy managing director in charge of market access, public affairs, communications and strategic planning roles.

Stefan Oschmann has moved from Merck US, where he ran the emerging markets division, to Merck KGaA where, following the departure of Elmar Schnee, he will run the pharmaceuticals division.

Idis, a consultancy that partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies across the life cycle of drug development, has appointed Guy Pedelini to the position of vice president of global human resources.

Refreshed Wellbeing, the digitally focused healthcare communications agency formed in September 2009, has recently appointed George Teague as its creative director. George's previous agencies include Lintas and DDB Health, where he developed campaigns for Schering-Plough, Roche, Bayer and Novo Nordisk. George has also run his own creative business, Gorgeous Creative, where he was involved in the start-up and branding of online businesses such as moonpig.com

Ellen Sarewitz joins Medicus International as director of client services. Ellen, who has over 20 years' healthcare experience, was previously head of international healthcare at Munro & Forster. Dr Claudia Peña Murillo joins the agency as associate medical writer, providing additional support to the Boehringer Ingelheim oncology accounts.

David Fisher has been appointed managing director of PMGroup, replacing the company's founder Mark Savage who has assumed the role of CEO. David, former commercial director with The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), has more than 25 years' experience within the international pharmaceutical industry working with Ciba Geigy, Pfizer and sanofi-aventis. David will join Mark, company secretary Trish Savage and non executive director Dawn Stallwood, founder and owner of consultancy Dantree, on the board of the independent publishing company.

Chime Communications has announced the launch of a new joint venture in the healthcare communications arena led by David Rowley, former global head of Huntsworth Health, and Sandy Royden, formerly head of Europe at Huntsworth Health. The new company will be the first discipline- and channel-neutral group in the healthcare arena and will be built through organic growth and focused acquisitions. "Combining our experience in the health space with the resources of Chime, will, we believe, result in a brand new type of health communications practice that will help our clients adapt successfully to a rapidly evolving marketplace," said Rowley. Lord Bell, chairman of Chime Communications said: "Health is one of the fastest growing sectors in communications, and we have been very impressed with both David and Sandy's track record, but more importantly, their insight into how together we can build a market-leading business."