Celgene exec joins Vifor Pharma as president international

Vifor Pharma (VTX: VIFN) today announced the appointment of Lee Heeson as president international and a member of the executive committee as of February 1, 2020, with the news sending the Swiss drugmaker’s shares up 2.37% to 161.85 francs.

Mr Heeson joins Vifor Pharma from Celgene (Nasdaq: CELG), where he was president, worldwide markets, responsible for the Inflammation & Immunology (I&I) franchise in all ex-US markets. Celgene is the subject of a $74 billion takeover by Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY), which finally gained anti-trust clearance on Friday and is now expected to close very shortly.

In his most recent position, Mr Heeson led the execution and geographic expansion for psoriasis drug Otezla (apremilast), the launch preparation for investigational immunomodulatory drug Ozanimod and represented ex-US commercialization on the I&I executive committee. Prior to that, he held positions at Galderma, Schering-Plough, Allergan and Lorex Synthelabo (now Sanofi), working across multiple therapeutic areas and geographies, including Europe, Latin America, the USA and Japan.