UCB Establishes the Emmanuel Janssen Endowed Chair for the Evaluation of Medicines at Brigham and Women's Hospital

• Permanent endowment advances pharmacoepidemiology and real-world evidence research
• Sebastian Schneeweiss, MD, ScD, an internationally recognized pharmacoepidemiologist whose research focuses on improving medication safety, effectiveness, and value through real-world evidence, has been named the chair's inaugural incumbent.

BRUSSELS and ATLANTA, Oct. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- UCB, a global biopharmaceutical company focused on severe diseases, today announced the establishment of the Emmanuel Janssen Endowed Chair for the Evaluation of Medicines at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham system. Named in honor of Emmanuel Janssen and his legacy at UCB, the chair recognizes a longstanding commitment to advancing science and improving patient care. Sebastian Schneeweiss, MD, ScD, has been named the chair's inaugural incumbent.

The gift creates a permanently endowed chair fund in the specialty of pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoeconomics.

UCB selected Brigham and Women's Hospital in recognition of the institution's leadership in pharmacoepidemiology and real-world evidence (RWE), and its work with both regulators and payers to establish RWE as a pivotal part of evidence generation.

"We selected Brigham and Women's Hospital because of its leadership in pharmacoepidemiology and its ability to translate real-world evidence into insights that can inform decisions by regulators, payers, clinicians, and patients," said Emmanuel Caeymaex, Head of Patient Evidence at UCB. "This endowed chair reflects our commitment to advancing rigorous evidence generation and supporting research that can improve how medicines are evaluated and used in clinical practice."

"I am deeply grateful to UCB Pharma for its generous support of pharmacoepidemiology research across our system," said Jose Florez, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Medicine at Mass General Brigham. "An endowed chair is among the highest honors we can bestow upon a physician-scientist, recognizing both extraordinary achievement and the promise of continued discovery. This investment by UCB Pharma will help us continue to progress in a field that is essential to improving how medicines are evaluated and used to benefit patients."

"I am sincerely grateful to receive this extraordinary honor," said Sebastian Schneeweiss, MD, ScD, inaugural incumbent of the Emmanuel Janssen Endowed Chair for the Evaluation of Medicines. "Through our research, we strive to generate rigorous evidence, guide better decisions, and improve care for patients. This chair will help advance that important work for years to come."

A celebration honoring the establishment of the chair and its inaugural incumbent was held on Thursday, October 22, 2026, in the Stewart and Susan Satter Atrium of the Hale Building for Transformative Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, 60 Fenwood Road, Boston.

The program featured remarks from Dr. Florez; Robert Califf, MD, former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Jerry Avorn, MD, Founding Chief Emeritus of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women's Hospital; Charles-Antoine Janssen, Director and Vice Chair of the UCB Board of Directors, Emmanuel Caeymaex on behalf of UCB; and Dr. Schneeweiss.

About UCB in the U.S.
UCB has maintained a significant U.S. presence for decades, including its U.S. headquarters and eight offices across six communities in California, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Washington, and Washington, D.C. With nearly 2,000 U.S. employees focused on research, development, and commercial operations across the country, UCB is adding a U.S. biomanufacturing campus in Georgia, which will create 330+ new, highly skilled jobs. UCB has increased its U.S. workforce by more than 70% since 2017, with over 25% of U.S. employees dedicated to R&D. Over the last decade, UCB has made significant investments in U.S. companies through acquisitions and partnerships and has achieved 15 FDA approvals, advancing innovation, supporting high-quality jobs, and delivering meaningful progress for patients.

About UCB 
UCB, Brussels, Belgium (www.ucb.com) is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of innovative medicines and solutions to transform the lives of people living with severe diseases of the immune system or of the central nervous system. With more than 9 000 people in approximately 40 countries, the company generated revenue of € 7.7 billion in 2025. UCB is listed on Euronext Brussels (symbol: UCB).

For further information, contact UCB:

U.S. Communications
Jeanna Buck-Simpson
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 202-774-6315

Forward looking statements
This document contains forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements containing the words "potential", "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "intends", "plans", "seeks", "estimates", "may", "will", "continue" and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are based on current plans, estimates and beliefs of management. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including estimates of revenues, operating margins, capital expenditures, cash, other financial information, expected legal, arbitration, political, regulatory or clinical results or practices and other such estimates and results. By their nature, such forward-looking statements are not guaranteeing future performance and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and assumptions which might cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of UCB, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements contained in this document.

Important factors that could result in such differences include but are not limited to: global spread and impacts of wars, pandemics and terrorism, the general geopolitical environment, climate change, changes in general economic, business and competitive conditions, the inability to obtain necessary regulatory approvals or to obtain them on acceptable terms or within expected timing, costs associated with research and development, changes in the prospects for products in the pipeline or under development by UCB, effects of future judicial decisions or governmental investigations, safety, quality, data integrity or manufacturing issues, supply chain disruption and business continuity risks; potential or actual data security and data privacy breaches, or disruptions of UCB's information technology systems, product liability claims, challenges to patent protection for products or product candidates, competition from other products including biosimilars or disruptive technologies/business models, changes in laws or regulations, exchange rate fluctuations, changes or uncertainties in laws and/or rules pertaining to tax and duties or the administration of such laws and/or rules, and hiring, retention and compliance of employees. There is no guarantee that new product candidates will be discovered or identified in the pipeline, or that new indications for existing products will be developed and approved. Movement from concept to commercial product is uncertain; preclinical results do not guarantee safety and efficacy of product candidates in humans. So far, the complexity of the human body cannot be reproduced in computer models, cell culture systems or animal models. The length of the timing to complete clinical trials and to get regulatory approval for product marketing has varied in the past and UCB expects similar unpredictability going forward. Products or potential products which are the subject of partnerships, joint ventures or licensing collaborations may be subject to disputes between the partners or may prove to be not as safe, effective or commercially successful as UCB may have believed at the start of such partnership. UCB's efforts to acquire other products or companies and to integrate the operations of such acquired companies may not be as successful as UCB may have believed at the moment of acquisition. Also, UCB or others could discover safety, side effects or manufacturing problems with its products and/or devices after they are marketed. The discovery of significant problems with a product similar to one of UCB's products that implicate an entire class of products may have a material adverse effect on sales of the entire class of affected products. Moreover, sales may be impacted by international and domestic trends toward managed care and health care cost containment, including pricing pressure, political and public scrutiny, customer and prescriber patterns or practices, and the reimbursement policies imposed by third-party payers as well as legislation affecting biopharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement activities and outcomes. Finally, a breakdown, cyberattack or information security breach could compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of UCB's data and systems.

Given these uncertainties, the public is cautioned not to place any undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this document, and do not reflect any potential impacts from the evolving event or risk as mentioned above as well as any other adversity, unless indicated otherwise. The company continues to follow the development diligently to assess the financial significance of these events, as the case may be, to UCB.

UCB expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements in this document, either to confirm the actual results or to report or reflect any change in its forward-looking statements with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based, unless such statement is required pursuant to applicable laws and regulations.

SOURCE UCB