Janet Hammond Joins Roche as Vice President, Translational Medicine - Virology

NUTLEY, N.J., March 28, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Roche announced today that Janet Hammond, MD, Ph.D., has joined the company as Vice President, Translational Medicine – Virology in Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development (pRED). In her new role, Janet will report to Jacques Banchereau, Ph.D., Discovery and Translational Area (DTA) Head for Inflammation and Virology, and Chief Scientific Officer at Nutley, and be responsible for driving strategy and implementation of early clinical development for the Virology DTA.

Prior to Roche, Janet served as Chief Medical Officer and Senior VP of Global Medical Affairs at Valeant Pharmaceuticals International where she was responsible for medical affairs and pharmacovigilence activities worldwide. As Chair of the Global Safety Board, Janet was also responsible for ensuring patient, clinical trial and product safety. Other industry positions include: Bristol-Myers Squibb, where as Group Director, Global Clinical Research, Virology and Infections Diseases, she was medical lead for the Early Clinical research team for HIV Early Development and Virology Life Cycle management; and GlaxoSmithKline, where she served as Head of Clinical Drug Discovery Virology, responsible for developing a new department as well as medical strategy, IND submissions and clinical development of small molecules and vaccines.

"Janet's background and experience will be a great addition to our efforts to drive Translational Medicine as well as Virology within Roche as we continue our quest to find new and more effective approaches to drug development, ultimately providing better options for patients," said Jacques Banchereau.

"I am delighted to be joining Roche. The company is on the cutting edge of research in the areas of virology and translational medicine, and I am very excited to be able to be part of an impressive team of people who are striving to develop new approaches for the treatment of patients with infectious diseases," said Hammond.

With an impressive 13-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, and a broad academic background in several medical areas, Janet has made numerous contributions to the field. These include: three New Drug Applications (NDA) and Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) submissions, more than 10 supplemental NDAs, and project lead in translational medicine on more than 10 Investigational New Drug (IND) submissions. In addition, she has been involved in launch preparations for three new drugs, and managed the integration and development of new departments as a result of major company acquisitions.

Janet received her MD and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Cape Town, South Africa and an ScM in Clinical Investigation from Johns Hopkins University. Currently, she is an adjunct faculty member at UCLA and attending physician at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Hospital.

She is also a member of the College of Medicine of South Africa, International Society of Infectious Diseases, Infectious Diseases Society of America and Southern African Critical Care Society. Janet, a reviewer for Lancet and the European Journal of Medical Microbiology, has authored more than 45 publications and is a sought after presenter at scientific meetings. In addition, Janet has received numerous awards and honors during her career.

Janet is married to Peter Potgieter MD, Ph.D. and will be relocating to Nutley from southern California.

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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SOURCE Roche