Shire appoints new chief scientific and medical officers

Busch is currently head of Drug Discovery at Bayer, leading a team of around 3,300 researchers. During his 13 years at Bayer, he has held roles of increasing responsibility within the company, including senior vice president, head discovery Europe at Bayer HealthCare and executive vice president Global Head Drug Discovery.

Chief executive officer Flemming Ornskov, said: "Andy is an outstanding scientist with extensive experience leading research and development functions, and an established track record of building broad portfolios that encompass both biologics and small molecules. We look forward to Andy enabling us to further accelerate our ability to discover novel treatments for our innovative rare disease pipeline."

Meanwhile, Howard Mayer, currently serving as the company's head of research and development, has been appointed chief medical officer, also effective in January next year.

Before taking on the role of senior vice president and head of R&D at Shire, Mayer was senior vice president and head of Global Clinical Development at the company. He joined Shire in 2012 and has been responsible for global clinical development across immunology, hereditary angioedema, hematology, lysosomal storage disorders, gastrointestinal/ internal medicine /endocrine, ophthalmics, a growing franchise in oncology, and neuroscience.

Ornskov said: "Howard is an established leader at Shire and in the industry, with extensive clinical development and regulatory experience across a variety of therapeutic areas. He has been an integral component to building and advancing Shire's pipeline with nearly 40 programmes in the clinic, including 17 in later stages of development. I am confident he will thrive in his new role, as we continue to seek to deliver novel rare disease treatments to patients in need."

At 1020 GMT, the shares were down 0.2% to 3,655.50p.