Eli Lil­ly has found a new chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer from among the ranks at Bris­tol My­ers Squibb, as it says farewell to its long­time head of hu­man re­sources Stephen Fry.

Stephen Fry

Fry an­nounced on Thurs­day his plans to re­tire af­ter more than 35 years with Lil­ly. He’ll va­cate his seat as SVP of hu­man re­sources and di­ver­si­ty at the end of the year, and cur­rent Loxo CCO Er­ic Dozi­er is slat­ed to take his place. As a re­sult, BMS’ Win­selow Tuck­er is join­ing the team as Loxo CCO at the end of the month.

Tuck­er is leav­ing his post as in­ter­con­ti­nen­tal SVP at BMS, a job he’s held for on­ly about eight months. Be­fore that, he was the SVP and gen­er­al man­ag­er of the hema­tol­ogy busi­ness, where, among oth­er ac­com­plish­ments, he was one of the lead­ers be­hind the phar­ma gi­ant’s $300 mil­lion com­mit­ment to com­bat racial dis­par­i­ties.

Er­ic Dozi­er

“What I’m re­al­ly ex­cit­ed about is that this is a tan­gi­ble view,” he told End­points News back in 2020, “that we’re not just look­ing ex­ter­nal­ly, we’re al­so look­ing in­ter­nal­ly as well to fig­ure out how can we sup­port the right eq­ui­ty across both our in­ter­nal or­ga­ni­za­tions and in the com­mu­ni­ties of pa­tients that we serve.”

Tuck­er has been vo­cal about ad­dress­ing racial dis­par­i­ties with­in health­care and was al­so in­volved in BMS’ Stand­ing in the Gaap pro­gram de­signed to close gaps in the di­ag­no­sis, care and sur­vival rates of African Amer­i­cans with mul­ti­ple myelo­ma.

Our own Win­selow Tuck­er shared his per­spec­tive on in­clu­sive in­no­va­tion and ways to en­sure eq­ui­table ac­cess to health­care for un­der­served pop­u­la­tions at @For­tuneMagazine @BStormHealth. #For­tune­Health #HealthE­quity pic.twit­ter.com/CE0H6fIn5f

— Bris­tol My­ers Squibb (@bm­snews) May 11, 2022

“I grew up in New York City, a city of con­trasts. I saw this first-hand when it came to in­for­ma­tion, ed­u­ca­tion, and op­por­tu­ni­ties. That aware­ness shaped who I am to­day and how I see and un­der­stand the world. I know that ac­cess to health­care and med­i­cines can change some­one’s life,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post mark­ing his 100th day as BMS’ in­ter­con­ti­nen­tal SVP.

Tuck­er added that he was ready to tran­si­tion from “the ini­tial pe­ri­od of lis­ten­ing and learn­ing to lean in­to our goals with full force.”

Ja­cob van Naar­den

“Win­selow brings deep ex­per­tise in both on­col­o­gy and hema­tol­ogy that will sup­port the con­tin­ued growth of our ex­ist­ing com­mer­cial port­fo­lio and ef­forts to bring our pipeline of can­cer med­i­cines to pa­tients around the world,” Ja­cob Van Naar­den, SVP and CEO Lil­ly’s Loxo unit, said in a news re­lease.

Fry is head­ing in­to re­tire­ment af­ter more than 35 years at Eli Lil­ly, where he start­ed as a sys­tems an­a­lyst in In­di­ana back in 1987, ac­cord­ing to his LinkedIn pro­file. Fry’s po­si­tions have spanned the globe, in­clud­ing HR di­rec­tor in the UK and gen­er­al man­ag­er in Aus­tralia and New Zealand.

Dave Ricks

“Steve has left a pos­i­tive and in­deli­ble im­print on the peo­ple, cul­ture and per­for­mance of our com­pa­ny,” CEO David Ricks said in a news re­lease. “Serv­ing as our CHRO over the past 11 years, Steve has played a key role in lead­ing us through the chal­lenges we faced in those ear­ly years, mod­ern­iz­ing so many di­men­sions of our HR func­tion—in­clud­ing di­ver­si­ty, eq­ui­ty and in­clu­sion—and lead­ing the com­pa­ny’s ef­forts to be­come a pre­mier em­ploy­er around the world.”

That leaves Dozi­er with some big shoes to fill, though Ricks is con­fi­dent he’s up for the task. Dozi­er has been with Lil­ly for near­ly 25 years, hop­ping from roles such as chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer for Japan to VP of glob­al ethics and com­pli­ance be­fore set­tling in as Loxo CCO.

“Er­ic is the right leader to dri­ve our peo­ple strat­e­gy and di­ver­si­ty, eq­ui­ty, and in­clu­sion agen­da as Lil­ly en­ters a new and ex­cit­ing chap­ter of growth,” Ricks said.

The Federal Trade Commission has gotten involved in a patent feud over Supernus’ Parkinson’s drug Apokyn, a case the agency said may have ‘‘significant implications” for patients who rely on the drug.

Sage Chemical won the first generic approval for its Apokyn formulation (also known as apomorphine hydrochloride injection) back in 2022. The non-ergoline dopamine agonist is approved to treat Parkinson’s symptoms during “off episodes,” such as difficulty moving, tremors and intense cramping. However, regulators specified that the approval pertained to the generic drug cartridges only, not the injector pen required for administration.

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) last year sought to find ways to better coordinate large-scale clinical trials in the US — as the UK lead by example during the pandemic — especially for these emergency clinical trials.

The lobbying group PhRMA Tuesday called for more clinical trial diversity in underserved areas, including by making participation less of a burden, and expanding eligibility criteria when appropriate.

Today, we’re opening nominations for our fifth annual Women in Biopharma R&D special report.

Over the last four years, we’ve honored 80 women whose extraordinary accomplishments have changed the game in biopharma R&D. We’re looking for big thinkers, scientists, executives and other enterprising women who are breaking barriers in drug development and inspiring the next generation of leaders.