Genentech’s Sean Bohen defects to AstraZeneca as CMO

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AstraZeneca‘s Senior management team gets reinforced by Sean Bohen, a top executive from Roche‘s subsidiary Genentech. Starting in two weeks, he will push late-stage treatments to the market. 

It’s been two months since two senior manager left the struggling AstraZeneca. Among them, Briggs Morrison, who left to become new CEO of Syndax. To replace him, Astra gets a former colleague from its CEO Pascal Soriot on board: Sean Bohen. Like Soriot, he comes to the company after working for Roche.

Sean Bohen © AstraZeneca

Bohen will help the potential treatments through late-stage development to the market. A bit of a change from his former tasks at Genentech, where he oversaw early stage development of the potential treatments to get them into the stage where he will be active now.

Prior to joining Genentech, he worked as clinical instructor for Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Both work experiences gave Bohen expertise in therapy areas that both companies share, particularly in cancer, but also including respiratory and autoimmune diseases.

Starting on 15 September, he will have a lot to do since the company ramped up its late-stage pipeline dramatically in the recent years. New treatments must cash in long term earnings for the company, which must compensate for the decreasing revenues of the UK-based company after a patent cliff.

Roche won’t be happy that more of its executives switch to its direct competitor. Soriot helped Astra turn around through its massive pipeline investment; Bohen must now handle it.