Novartis announces new leader of Pharmaceuticals Business Unit

Novartis announced that Marie-France Tschudin, currently President, Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA), a Novartis company, has been appointed President, Novartis Pharmaceuticals. She will report to Vas Narasimhan, CEO Novartis, and will join the Executive Committee with immediate effect. Marie-France Tschudin succeeds Paul Hudson who will be leaving Novartis to take the CEO position of a multinational pharmaceuticals company.

Vas Narasimhan, CEO Novartis, said: "I am pleased that Marie-France Tschudin is ready to take over from Paul Hudson to further grow the business and lead the expected upcoming launches of our transformative medicines. Marie-France has a strong record of accomplishments in driving commercial excellence and a culture of inclusiveness and integrity founded on her exemplary commitment to patients and customers. She has always been highly respected by people working with her and will bring new and diverse perspectives to our executive leadership team. I would like to thank Paul for his exceptional leadership in positioning our pharmaceuticals business for strong future growth. He also established a new culture of commercial excellence, integrity and nurtured a strong, diverse talent pool."

Regarding her appointment, Marie-France Tschudin said: "I'm honored and excited to be given the opportunity to lead and further develop one of the greatest businesses in our industry. I would like to thank Paul for his leadership and his focus on people and I wish him continued success going forward. I'm excited to deliver my part in reimagining medicine for as many people as possible together with our associates at Novartis."

Marie-France Tschudin has more than 25 years of broad, multi-national experience in the pharmaceuticals and biotech industry. She joined Novartis in January 2017.  As a member of the Novartis Pharmaceuticals Executive Committee and Head of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Region Europe she successfully grew the largest regional business within Novartis across countries, therapeutic areas and products to over USD 8 Billion in sales by the end of 2018. She also built a diverse leadership team, managed the entire pharmaceuticals portfolio and oversaw the preparations for our potential blockbuster launches in Europe.  Before joining Novartis, Marie-France spent 10 years at Celgene in a variety of leadership and general management positions and led their Hematology-Oncology business for Europe, Middle East and Africa from 2014 to 2016.

Marie-France Tschudin is a Swiss citizen. She speaks six languages, graduated from Georgetown University, Washington D.C. and holds a Master in Business Administration from the Institute for Management Development (IMD), Lausanne.

This release was first published 7 June 2019 by Novartis.