Frontier Medicines nabs Novo Nordisk exec to head business development

US precision medicines company Frontier Medicines today announced the addition of Christo Shalish to the leadership team as senior vice president (SVP) and head of business development.

“As we continue our rapid evolution, we are thrilled to have Christo Shalish at Frontier as a member of our leadership team,” said Chris Varma, Frontier’s co-founder, chairman, and chief executive, adding: “Christo brings deep and diverse experience across large-scale global pharmaceutical organizations and emerging biotech companies and is adept at building successful alliances that help deliver innovation for patients.”

Mr Shalish joins Frontier from the global business unit of Danish diabetes care giant Novo Nordisk (NOV: N). Prior to his tenure with Novo Nordisk, Mr Shalish led the business development and alliance management functions at Dicerna Pharmaceuticals. While at Dicerna, he facilitated collaborations with Roche and Novo Nordisk, leading up to the successful acquisition of Dicerna by Novo Nordisk.