Thomas Dittrich returns to pharma as Shire CFO

Rare diseases drugmaker Shire (LSE: SHP) has named Thomas Dittrich (pictured above) its new chief financial officer (CFO).

Mr Dittrich, who will also become an executive member of the board of directors and a member of the executive committee when he joins the company in early 2018, replaces Jeff Poulton, who will leave at the end of the year to join Indigo Ag, a start-up that seeks to improve agricultural productivity.

While Mr Poulton is leaving pharma to go to another industry, Mr Dittrich is going in the other direction. His current role is CFO of Switzerland-based Sulzer (SUN:SIX), an industrial engineering and manufacturing company. Before that, however, he was with US biotech Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN), where he rose to the position of chief accounting officer.