July 28, 2023 – Pfizer announced changes to its executive leadership team to further advance its aspirations to discover and develop new medicines and vaccines, with an emphasis on oncology.
Chris Boshoff, M.D., PhD, will join Pfizer’s Executive Leadership Team as Chief Oncology Research and Development Officer and Executive Vice President reporting to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Albert Bourla. Under his leadership, Pfizer will continue to invest in its fight against cancer and Dr. Boshoff will be the single point of accountability for the entire oncology pipeline – from discovery to early and late-phase clinical development.
Previously, Dr. Boshoff oversaw clinical research and product development activities for Pfizer’s Oncology portfolio, including 24 approved innovative cancer medicines and biosimilars in more than 30 indications, as well as Pfizer’s industry-leading Rare Disease portfolio of innovative medicines spanning four therapeutic areas. Before assuming leadership roles in the biopharmaceutical industry, Dr. Boshoff served as Director of the University College London (UCL) Cancer Institute. Dr. Boshoff earned his medical degree from University of Pretoria in South Africa, a PhD from the Institute of Cancer Research in London and trained as a medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden and Royal Free Hospitals in London. In addition to his expanded role, Dr Boshoff is leading the integration planning for Seagen’s medicines and team.
Mikael Dolsten, M.D., PhD, currently Chief Scientific Officer & President, Pfizer Worldwide Research, Development and Medical, will now expand his role to lead all discovery, early- and late-stage clinical development, for all non-oncology therapeutic areas as Chief Scientific Officer, President, Pfizer Research & Development. In addition to his current leadership of discovery and early-phase clinical development, he will lead an end-to-end model across all of Pfizer’s other therapeutic areas. These therapeutic areas include Vaccines, Inflammation and Immunology, Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases as well as non-malignant hematology and rare neuromuscular diseases.
As a result of these moves, William Pao, Chief Development Officer, and Executive Vice President will be leaving Pfizer in the month ahead to pursue new opportunities outside the company. A highly capable and results-oriented leader, William always displayed high integrity and rigorous scientific standards in his work and made significant contributions to the Global Product Development (GPD) organization by bringing strong, data-driven decision-making that always put patients at the center.