Switzerland's Novartis AG made changes to its executive committee and is splitting one of its units into two separate divisions.
André Wyss, who is responsible for streamlining production and corporate services as president of Novartis Operations, will be leaving the company April 1 to pursue his career elsewhere.
Wyss is also Novartis' country president for Switzerland, a position that will be assumed by Matthias Leuenberger.
After Wyss steps down, Novartis Operations will be split into Novartis Technical Operations and Novartis Business Services.
Novartis Business Services will be led by Philippe Barrois, head of Novartis' corporate affairs, on an interim basis.
Steffen Lang will lead Novartis Technical Operations. He previously served as Novartis' global head of biologics technical development and manufacturing, as well as global head of technical research and development.
Shannon Klinger, the global head for legal and general counsel at Sandoz Corp., a unit of Novartis, will become the chief ethics, risk and compliance officer of the Swiss drugmaker.
Lang and Klinger will also join Novartis' executive committee, and so will Bertrand Bodson, the company's chief digital officer.
"We are making these changes to harness the full strength of Novartis as we build the leading medicines company, powered by data and digital. The appointments ... will help us accelerate our efforts to lead in data and digital, increase our focus on operational execution, and reinforce our commitment to return more to society than we take," Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said in a statement.
