Nxera Pharma Appoints Experienced Commercial R&D Executive Makoto Sugita as Chief Medical Officer and President of Nxera Pharma Japan
- Dr. Sugita – formerly Vice President, Head of R&D for Bristol Myers Squibb in Japan – brings nearly 20 years’ experience in R&D and commercial roles working within the Japanese businesses of global pharmaceutical companies
Tokyo, Japan and Cambridge, UK, 1 October 2024 – Nxera Pharma Co., Ltd. (“Nxera” or “the Company”; TSE 4565) – formerly known as Sosei Group or Sosei Heptares – today announces the appointment of Dr. Makoto Sugita, M.D., Ph.D., MBA, as President of Nxera Pharma Japan, and Executive Officer, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Nxera Pharma.
Dr. Sugita is the former Vice President, and Head of R&D at Bristol Myers Squibb in Japan, a leading global biopharmaceutical company. He is a highly experienced medical professional having spent the past 20 years in R&D and commercial leadership positions within the Japanese businesses of global biopharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson/Janssen Pharmaceutical K.K. and AstraZeneca K.K., and Parexel, the global Contract Research Organization (CRO).
Dr. Sugita holds a Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan) and an MBA from McGill University (Montreal, Canada).
Chris Cargill, President and CEO of Nxera, commented: “Dr. Sugita is an excellent addition to our team at Nxera. His exemplary credentials speak for themselves, and he is highly respected across the industry in Japan. His appointment, together with that of Toshihiro Maeda as Chief Operating Officer in January, highlights our ability to attract senior, highly talented and experienced pharma professionals who share our vision to become a leading biopharmaceutical company in Japan, and will be invaluable to helping us achieve this goal.”
Dr. Makoto Sugita added: “I am excited to join Nxera at a time when the company is making great progress building a competitive next-generation biopharma business in Japan. Nxera has developed a highly innovative pipeline across several important disease areas, and together with the opportunity to source external product development candidates I believe we can make a major difference to the lives of patients in Japan and globally.”
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About Nxera Pharma
Nxera Pharma (formerly Sosei Heptares) is a technology powered biopharma company, in pursuit of new specialty medicines to improve the lives of patients with unmet needs in Japan and globally.
In addition to several products being commercialized in Japan, we are advancing an extensive pipeline of over 30 active programs from discovery through to late clinical stage internally and in partnership with leading pharma and biotech companies. This pipeline is focused on addressing major unmet needs in some of the fastest-growing areas of medicine across neurology, GI and immunology, metabolic disorders and rare diseases, and leverages the power of our unique and industry leading GPCR-targeted structure-based drug discovery NxWaveTM platform to provide a sustainable source of best- or first-in-class candidates.
Nxera employs over 350 talented people at key locations in Tokyo and Osaka (Japan), London and Cambridge (UK), Basel (Switzerland) and Seoul (South Korea) and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (ticker: 4565).
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Forward-looking statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements about the discovery, development, and commercialization of products. Various risks may cause Nxera Pharma Group’s actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward looking statements, including: adverse results in clinical development programs; failure to obtain patent protection for inventions; commercial limitations imposed by patents owned or controlled by third parties; dependence upon strategic alliance partners to develop and commercialize products and services; difficulties or delays in obtaining regulatory approvals to market products and services resulting from development efforts; the requirement for substantial funding to conduct research and development and to expand commercialization activities; and product initiatives by competitors. As a result of these factors, prospective investors are cautioned not to rely on any forward-looking statements. We disclaim any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
