AstraZeneca appoints new EVP of BioPharmaceuticals R&D

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AstraZeneca has announced that Sharon Barr will succeed Mene Pangalos as Executive Vice President, BioPharmaceuticals R&D.

Pangalos will step down from his role in early 2024 due to retirement. His length of service with the company totals almost fourteen years.

Sharon Barr brings over 18 years of industry experience into her new role and will be responsible for discovery through to late-stage development. She will work across Cardiovascular, Renal & Metabolism and Respiratory & Immunology. Barr will report to Chief Executive Officer, Pascal Soriot and become a new member of AstraZeneca’s Senior Executive Team (SET) as of 1 August 2023.

Since 2013, Barr has worked as Senior Vice President, Head of Research and Product Development of Alexion, AstraZeneca’s rare disease group. In this role, she has been responsible for drug discovery, process development and clinical supply as well as clinical biomarkers and bioanalytical discovery, rare disease diagnostics and bioinformatics. Within the pipeline, she worked from target discovery through to post-marketing. Sharon Barr received her PhD in molecular biology from New York University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship focused on mechanisms of DNA Damage and Repair at Stanford University.

AstraZeneca’s new Executive Vice President of Biopharmaceuticals R&D 

On her appointment with the Big Pharma company, Sharon Barr, Executive Vice President of Biopharmaceuticals R&D commented that she is “honoured to carry forward the [team’s] work [and looks] forward to the next chapter with this team, as we continue to expand our portfolio and work together to deliver life-changing medicines for patients”.

Pascal Soriot, CEO commented: “I am delighted that Sharon will join the AstraZeneca Senior Executive Team at a very exciting time for our company. She brings outstanding experience essential to the advancement” to AstraZeneca’s BioPharmaceuticals pipeline, plus “a track record of driving productivity, innovation and delivery of medicines for patients.”

Soriot continued, remarking on retiring Executive Vice President of Biopharmaceuticals R&D, Mene Pangalos’ success in “delivering a greater than five-fold improvement in productivity [since 2010 and]… overseeing the creation of the DISC – our new R&D Centre in Cambridge, UK”.

Mene Pangalos shared: “Working at AstraZeneca for nearly 14 years has been an absolute privilege… The transformation we have made to the pipeline, helping bring many innovative new medicines to patients around the world has been incredible.”