BRIEF—Shire appoints new chief scientific officer and chief medical officer

London-listed rare disease specialist Shire has appointed a new chief scientific officer and R&D head, Andreas Busch, effective January.

Current R&D head Howard Mayer has been appointed chief medical officer.

Dr Busch is currently head of drug discovery at Germany’s Bayer, where he has worked for 13 years. He previously headed up cardiovascular research at Hoechst and at Sanofi-Aventis.

New chief medical officer Howard Mayer joined Shire in 2012 and has worked as head of global clinical development, focusing on immunology, hereditary angioedema, hematology and other therapeutic areas.

Prior to joining Shire, he served as chief medical officer at a division of Merck KGaA.