BIA chairwomen Jane Osbourn to leave AstraZeneca

The UK’s BioIndustry Association (BIA) chairwoman Dr Jane Osbourn has announced this week that she is to leave AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) after 25 years with Cambridge Antibody Technology and MedImmune, where she is vice president R&D and site leader, the trade group announced yesterday.

During that time she has achieved a huge amount of biological drug development, with 8 drugs launched, and biologics now making up 50% of the AstraZeneca pipeline. She will help with organizational transition at AstraZeneca for the next few months and has assured the BIA board that she will continue as BIA chairwoman until the end of her term.

Dr Osbourn’s news follows AstraZeneca’s announcement (alongside its annual results last week) that it will be restructuring the R&D organization to align with therapy areas. This means the current three AstraZeneca science units (MedImmune, Innovative Medicines Development, and Global Medicines Development) are being dissolved and two new R&D units are to be created, one of which will focused on oncology and the second covering other therapy areas (cardiovascular/metabolic, respiratory, infection and neuroscience) and also incorporating the discovery platforms. This reorganization will also retire the MedImmune brand.