Novartis Appoints Victor Bulto as New President of U.S. Pharmaceuticals Amid Ongoing Executive Reshuffle

Compiled by: Fan Dongdong

Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan spearheaded a leadership restructuring, and Novartis US has recently appointed a new president.

Novartis announced that Fabrice Chouraqui, President of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation in the United States, will step down at the end of August this year. He will be succeeded by Victor Bulto, who currently serves as the Head of the Immunology, Hepatology, and Dermatology Franchise at Novartis US. Novartis did not disclose the specific reasons for Chouraqui’s departure. The company stated that Bulto’s appointment is based on his extensive experience across multiple therapeutic areas and his 14-year tenure with Novartis. Additionally, Bulto played a key role in launching and achieving the commercial success of the psoriasis drug Cosentyx in the U.S. market. Upon assuming his new role, Bulto will report to Marie France Tschudin, Global President of Novartis.

In September 2017, Novartis announced that former CEO Joseph Jimenez would retire in 2018, and Vas Narasimhan, then only 41 years old, would become the new CEO. Since Narasimhan took office, Novartis has undergone significant adjustments and reforms in both its business focus and executive leadership changes. Previously, Richard Saynor, former CEO of GSK, succeeded Richard Francis as CEO of Sandoz, and Liz Barrett, former head of Novartis Oncology, was officially replaced by Susanne Schaffert in January.

If the aforementioned personnel adjustments were deliberate moves by Novartis, then the subsequent staffing changes related to Zolgensma could be described as forced implementations. Recently, Zolgensma, the world’s first gene therapy for treating spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), once again made headlines in the industry after being directly accused by the FDA of alleged data manipulation during its Biologics License Application process.

Surprisingly, Novartis had become aware of the data manipulation issues two months prior to the approval of Zolgensma, but did not notify the FDA until one month after the drug’s approval. It is widely believed that the concealment was intended to expedite FDA approval of the drug. Dr. Wilson Bryan, head of the FDA division responsible for reviewing Novartis’s gene therapy, stated that had the FDA been aware of the data manipulation earlier, it would certainly have delayed the approval of Zolgensma.

This data manipulation incident is merely a small part of Novartis’s regulatory missteps in recent years. Between 2013 and 2015, Novartis was embroiled in a major scandal in Japan, where regulators discovered that the company had manipulated data and failed to report drug side effects to the authorities as required by law. Furthermore, Novartis has faced bribery allegations in multiple countries. In the wake of these successive scandals, Novartis has been striving to strengthen its compliance framework, and it is believed that the current Zolgensma incident will ultimately lead to certain personnel penalties or adjustments.

Reference source: Novartis names Bulto new U.S. pharma chief as exec reshuffle continues