Top appointments at Astellas Pharma

Masafumi Nogimori, executive vice president of Astellas Pharma, Japan's number two drug company, will be promoted to president in place of Toichi Takenaka, who will become co-chairman, effective on June 27. Simultaneously, Hatsuo Aoki, chairman of Astellas, will be appointed co-chairman of the company. Dr Takenaka, who had become president and chief executive of the then Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical in April 2000, with Dr Aoki, then president of Fujisawa, has brought the merger of the two firms to a successful conclusion. Stressing "having a speed with vision in management," Dr Takenaka said he has made efforts to build a management infrastructure at Astellas by focusing on the prescription drug business in order to become a global R&D-oriented company.