Bristol Myers Squibb Appoints Dr. James Cai as Vice President and Head of R&D for China

Today, Chen Siyuan, General Manager of Bristol-Myers Squibb in Mainland China and Hong Kong, announced to employees that James Cai (Cai Xuejun) will join Bristol-Myers Squibb as Vice President and Head of R&D for China, effective September 1.

Prior to joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cai Xuejun served as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Asia Pacific, at Amgen. He brings over a decade of extensive experience leading R&D operations for multinational pharmaceutical companies in Asia, having previously held positions at AstraZeneca, Merck & Co., and Pfizer, among others.

BMS’s China R&D team encompasses clinical development, regulatory affairs, clinical operations, quality control and excellence management, R&D strategy and planning, strategy and operations, clinical pharmacology and quantitative sciences, medical writing, biostatistics, and real-world data evidence generation. All these functions report directly to Dr. Xuejun Cai. Furthermore, given the strategic importance of the China R&D team to Bristol-Myers Squibb’s global R&D efforts and its pipeline of innovative products, this role will also report directly to Samit Hirawat, Chief Medical Officer and Head of Global Drug Development at Bristol-Myers Squibb. This structure makes BMS China the second market outside the United States, after Japan, to report directly to the global R&D organization.

Meanwhile, Bristol-Myers Squibb also announced today the appointment of its Head of Regulatory Affairs for Mainland China and Hong Kong. This position will be held by Sophie Wang, who will join Bristol-Myers Squibb on September 1. She will report directly to Xuejun Cai, Head of Research and Development for China, and have a dotted-line reporting relationship to Eiko Tomita, Head of Regulatory Affairs for the Intercontinental Markets.