Hong Chow Appointed Executive Vice President of Global Product & Portfolio Strategy at Novo Nordisk Following Departure from Merck

According to the pharmaceutical media Fierce Pharma, Ludovic Helfgott, Novo Nordisk's current Executive Vice President of Product and Portfolio Strategy, is about to leave the company to pursue new career opportunities. His position will be succeeded by Hong Chow (Zhou Hong). Public information shows that Zhou Hong previously served as the Global Executive Vice President of Merck Healthcare and was responsible for business in China and international markets. Further confirmation of this news has been obtained from sources close to Merck, as reported by VCBeat.

Zhou Hong was born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang in 1971. She went to Germany for study at the age of 12 (in 1983). She holds a Master's degree in European Business from the Berlin School of Economics and Law and is one of the highest-ranking Chinese women in multinational pharmaceutical companies.

After graduating with a master's degree in 1996, Zhou Hong began her career at Deloitte Consulting, then moved to Schering (later acquired by Bayer), where she worked in the core finance department. She held positions such as Group R&D Finance Director, Head of Investor Relations, and Senior Authorized Manager of Corporate Business Development (BD), accumulating extensive experience in finance, investor relations, and business development.

Afterward, she joined Bayer and, over nearly a decade, held multiple cross-disciplinary and cross-border positions—from Germany to Singapore, then to China; from mature markets to emerging markets; and from the oncology and specialty pharmaceuticals fields to the animal health business. In 2011, she chose to return to China, and during her tenure as the independently responsible head of the animal health business in China, she took on full profit-and-loss (P&L) responsibility for an independent business unit for the first time.

In 2015, Zhou Hong joined Roche and served as the General Manager of Roche Pharmaceuticals China. During her six and a half years in the position, she facilitated the approval and market launch of 12 new drugs and 22 new indications in China, helped include multiple high-value targeted therapies from Roche into the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL), and doubled Roche Pharmaceuticals’ sales revenue in China.

In October 2021, Helen Zhou was appointed as Global Executive Vice President of Merck Group, Head of China and International Markets Business, managing all markets of Merck's healthcare business outside North America. She is also responsible for the global cardiovascular, metabolic, and endocrine product lines. Helen Zhou drives the localization development of Merck in China, formulating a five-year strategic plan based on the Chinese market, emphasizing collaborative efforts, accelerating innovation and R&D, promoting local R&D innovation and local manufacturing, and integrating into China's industrial ecosystem.