Richard A. Rudick joins Biogen Idec as Vice President, Development Sciences, Value-Based Medicine

Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) today announced that Richard (Rick) A. Rudick, M.D., has joined the company as vice president, Development Sciences, Value-Based Medicine.

Dr. Rudick will lead Biogen Idec’s newly created Value-Based Medicine Group, which will focus on using new technology to develop innovative programs and tools to better understand, measure and manage the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS). These assets are intended to enable physicians and patients to make more evidence-based, individualized treatment decisions with the goal of improving MS care. He will report to Alfred Sandrock, M.D., Ph.D., group senior vice president and chief medical officer.

“Rick has been a valued partner of the company for more than two decades. Through his years of hands-on clinical experience, he has gained a truly unique understanding of the needs of MS patients,” said Dr. Sandrock. “His vision, expertise and passion bolsters our efforts to create real-world, practical solutions to empower better decision-making and improve the way people live with MS.”

As an internationally recognized clinical researcher and thought leader in the MS field, Dr. Rudick has played key roles in several MS clinical trials, including the pivotal clinical trials of Biogen Idec’s products, AVONEX^® (interferon beta-1a) and TYSABRI^® (natalizumab).

“While current therapies are effective at controlling the progression of MS and improving symptoms, we need to better understand the real-world patient experience in a consistent and rigorous way to optimize individual treatment outcomes,” said Dr. Rudick. “By developing the right tools and models, we believe we can bridge the gap between investigational and real-world treatment, and improve the overall patient experience.”

Dr. Rudick joins Biogen Idec from the Cleveland Clinic, where he served as director of the Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis Treatment and Research for nearly 30 years. He also served as professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, the Hazel Prior Hostetler chair of Neurology, and vice chairman of Research and Development in the Neurological Institute at Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. Rudick has lectured and consulted on clinical research programs in MS around the world and maintained a consultative clinical practice at the Mellen Center. Dr. Rudick also maintained continuous competitive grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS) for more than 25 years, led studies on immunologic changes in MS patients, and developed new clinical and imaging measures for MS clinical trials. Dr. Rudick graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1975.