Harsukh Parmar Joins Roche as Head of Translational and Experimental Medicine - Inflammation

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Oct 10, 2011, 09:00 ET

NUTLEY, N.J., Oct. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Roche announced that Harsukh Parmar, MD, has joined the company as the new Head of Translational and Experimental Medicine (TM) for the Inflammation Discovery and Translational Area (DTA). In this role, Harsukh will drive the strategy and implementation of early clinical development in Inflammation and be accountable for TM's role in delivering innovative, first-in-class or best-in-class compounds to the Lifecycle Investment Point. He will also collaborate with Discovery and Clinical Development (late stage) to develop strategies based on biomarkers to ensure the selection of high quality compounds suitable for rapid progression through development.

"I am very pleased to have Harsukh join us. He is recognized worldwide as a leader and expert in respiratory, inflammation, immunology and oncology, and possesses the right combination of experience for this pivotal position," said Jacques Banchereau, PhD, Head of the Inflammation and Virology Discovery and Translational Areas (DTAs) and Nutley's Chief Scientific Officer. "As such, he will also provide valuable expertise and advice on target selection and the development of early stage compounds in our Inflammation pipeline."

This is the latest in a series distinguished new hires for the Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) organization, especially the Nutley research site, and further reinforces the company's goal of attracting world-class scientific talent to enhance its research efforts.

"Having previously worked for Roche and recognizing the rich heritage of innovation that has come from the pharma business in small molecules and biologics, I was excited to rejoin a company that has been a leader in many of its respective fields and where innovation is valued, respected and supported even when it requires some level of risk taking," said Harsukh. "This remains my philosophy and I believe this is well aligned with the corporate aims of Roche."

Harsukh joins Roche from Astra Zeneca (AZ) in the UK, where he was Early Development Director, Vice President and Global Head of Early Clinical Development in the Respiratory and Inflammation Therapeutic Area since 2007. During his tenure at AZ, he worked on both small and large molecule projects in respiratory, inflammation, cardiovascular, virology and oncology from Phase I-III and was also accountable for clinical target identification and validation, biomarker development, pathogenetic samples and clinical proof of concept. Prior to this, he served as Director, Global Discovery Medicine and Executive Director, Global Experimental Medicine. Earlier in his career, Harsukh worked for Roche as Global Clinical Science Leader and Director in Oncology, Immunology, Virology and Transplantation in Welwyn, England and was at Pfizer for some time, after more than a decade as an academic consultant with Ipsen Biotech and Debiopharm.

Harsukh earned his medical degree at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and did postgraduate research at Westminster and Charing Cross Hospitals. He's a recognized expert who has chaired or presented at numerous industry and academic conferences, and is an author or co-author on more than 250 publications. A British citizen, Harsukh and his family will relocate to New Jersey.

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world's largest biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based cancer diagnostics and a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche's personalized healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients. In 2010, Roche had over 80,000 employees worldwide and invested over 9 billion Swiss francs ($8.7B US) in R&D. The Group posted sales of 47.5 billion Swiss francs ($45.6B US). Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information: www.roche.com.

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