Roivant Announces Creation of Roivant Pharma and Roivant Health and Launch of Altavant
BASEL, Switzerland and NEW YORK, June 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Roivant today announced the creation of two new business units, Roivant Pharma and Roivant Health, to focus its efforts on accelerating the launch of new innovative healthcare companies, including Vants oriented around earlier-stage scientific platforms.
As part of this strategy, Roivant intends to make increased investments in fostering greater employee mobility across its family of companies. Select members of Roivant's staff have transitioned to existing Vants to further the advancement of their pipelines and ensure greater organizational autonomy. As part of this change, there was a reduction in headcount of less than ten percent of all employees across the Roivant family, most of whom were in central support functions including accounting, HR, and IT. Roivant has worked with the Vants toward a smooth transition of employees and services. These developments and other pipeline updates will be discussed at the upcoming Roivant Pipeline Day in New York City on July 10th.
Mayukh Sukhatme, M.D., formerly Chief Business Officer at Roivant, will serve as President of Roivant Pharma, a new business unit focused on end-to-end biopharmaceutical company creation in new therapeutic areas. In this role, Dr. Sukhatme will continue to oversee the sourcing and licensing of investigational medicines across therapeutic areas and will also lead the creation and oversight of new companies to accelerate development and commercialization. Current wholly- or majority-owned biopharmaceutical Vants include Myovant, Axovant, Enzyvant, Urovant, Dermavant, Genevant, and Metavant.
Benjamin Zimmer, who oversaw the formation and launch of Datavant while Head of Special Projects at Roivant, will serve as President of Roivant Health, a new business unit focused on launching companies that bring innovative medicines to emerging markets and improve the process of developing and commercializing new medicines through the application of technology.
Roivant also announced the launch of Altavant Sciences, a new biopharmaceutical company in the Roivant family led by Chief Executive Officer William T. Symonds, Pharm.D. At Altavant, Dr. Symonds will apply drug development approaches developed at Roivant to promising investigational therapies spanning multiple therapeutic areas beginning with RVT-1201, a potential treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension and other indications. Dr. Symonds has served as a senior leader at Roivant since the company's inception in 2014, most recently as Chief Development Officer. Earlier in his career, he oversaw the development of SOVALDI® and HARVONI® for the treatment of hepatitis C virus while at Pharmasset and Gilead Sciences.
"The standard of care for PAH remains insufficient," said Dr. Symonds. "I look forward to directing the newest member of the Roivant family as we develop RVT-1201 in a thoughtful, rigorous, and efficient manner that draws on best practices developed at Roivant in areas including patient engagement, the use of technology in trials, and the analysis of clinical trial results."
"I am excited to elevate several of Roivant's talented leaders to new roles that will enable them to tackle new challenges," said Vivek Ramaswamy, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Roivant. "Our goal is to deliver transformative innovation in healthcare. Going forward, we will expand the scope of our focus to include the advancement of potentially transformative assets into clinical development, even if they are at earlier stages of development than much of our pipeline to date. I look forward to providing additional updates at our first annual Pipeline Day next month."
About Roivant Pipeline Day
Roivant Pipeline Day will be held on Tuesday, July 10, 2018 in New York City. The event will feature presentations, fireside chats, and Q&A sessions from executives across the Roivant family of companies. The event is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. ET and will continue until approximately 5:30 p.m. ET. Due to limited capacity, attendance is by invitation only but a live webcast will be available to interested parties. To request access to the webcast or to learn more about the event, please email pipelineday@roivant.com.
About Roivant
Roivant Sciences is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on reducing the time and cost of the drug development process to improve the lives of patients and their families. Roivant partners with innovative companies and academic institutions to ensure that important medicines are rapidly developed and delivered to patients upon approval.
The Roivant family of companies includes Myovant (women's health), Axovant (neurology), Urovant (urology), Enzyvant (rare diseases), Dermavant (dermatology), Genevant (RNA therapeutics), Metavant (cardiometabolic diseases), Altavant (next-generation drug development), Datavant (healthcare data), and Arbutus (hepatitis B).
Today there are 25 investigational drugs in 11 therapeutic areas being tested in over 50 clinical trials across the Roivant family of companies.
For more information, please visit www.roivant.com.
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