Our Leaders
leadership
Servier’s ambition to improve patient care comes from the top.
Our best-in-class executives pave the way for success. Servier’s ambition to improve patient care comes from the top. Our best-in-class executives pave the way for that success.
David K. Lee
Chief Executive Officer
David K. Lee is a seasoned veteran of the pharma industry dedicated to bringing innovative, responsible and life-changing products to patients. As CEO, David leads Servier Pharmaceuticals’ efforts to leverage Servier Group’s global portfolio and seek acquisitions, licensing deals and partnerships in the United States. Under David’s leadership, the company has quadrupled its oncology portfolio and completed several business development and licensing agreements — including a $1.8 billion acquisition of Agios Pharmaceutical’s oncology business in 2021. Beyond business initiatives, David invests time in transforming the company’s culture to foster a people-first environment that is diverse and inclusive and prioritizes well-being. Since its inception in 2018, the company’s growth has positioned Servier Pharmaceuticals as a leader in the oncology space, achieving successful and significant clinical trial results and tackling hard-to-treat cancers.
David has held leadership positions at several industry-leading companies throughout his career, including Shire, Baxalta and Novartis. Before being the CEO of Servier Pharmaceuticals, he served as Shire’s Head of the Global Genetic Disease and Oncology franchises. He oversaw the cross-functional leadership teams responsible for strategy, marketing, business assessment and planning. His career highlights include the approval of products for oncology and genetic diseases. David also guided Servier’s acquisition of the Shire Oncology portfolio.
Energized by his mission to find cures for cancer and rare diseases, David spent time early in his career working at Partners in Health in Rwanda, the World Health Organization in Geneva and the Boston Medical Library. While at Novartis, he helped launch novel vaccines and orchestrated the successful cross-functional completion of various clinical trials. He has a passion for open innovation that feeds his commitment to identifying meaningful partnerships across the healthcare spectrum to foster next-generation scientific discovery that will have a lasting social impact in the United States and, ultimately, worldwide.
David received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Harvard University and his Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
Rory Murphy
Chief of Staff
Rory Murphy is Chief of Staff at Servier Pharmaceuticals. In his role, he uses his experience as a management consultant to further the strategic vision for current and future company initiatives while overseeing the framework of the organization. Rory closely works with the entirety of the U.S. Leadership Team, and, pulling from his previous roles where he led cross-functional teams, works to implement corporate strategic priorities.
Rory is a results-driven business leader with 15 years of experience advising senior executives. He formerly worked at L.E.K. Consulting in the role of Principal where he managed the strategic direction of a team of 12 consultants who partnered with clients to create and manage tactical plans and help solve complex analytical problems. He is familiar with the pharmaceutical space, having worked with life science and pharmaceutical companies at various stages of development, and he has worked with corporate executives to develop plans for FDA approval, benchmark drug portfolios and develop future growth strategies. Rory will play an integral part as we continue to grow Servier and expand our portfolio. Prior to his tenure at L.E.K., Rory worked as an Analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Rory received his Master of Business Administration from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a Bachelor of Science in Management, Finance, and Accounting from Boston College, Carroll School of Management.
Michael Bolton
General Counsel
Michael J. Bolton serves as Servier Pharmaceuticals’ General Counsel. Bringing 25 years of experience with pharmaceuticals law, Michael oversees contracting, governance, and supports the Servier Leadership with legal strategies in the ever-changing oncology space.
Prior to Servier, Michael’s creative problem-solving skills were vital to dealing with pricing and antitrust litigation at Baxalta and mass tort liability at Baxter Healthcare Corporation. He was also responsible for international coordination of multi-front litigation and partnered with plaintiffs to resolve a U.S. hemophiliac litigation and to support funding for the Ricky Ray Act. Michael’s litigation experience is derived from a major Chicago law firm. He had more than 300 cases sent out to jury trial as a trial supervisor with the City of Chicago Department of Law.
Michael received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois and earned his law degree from the University of Michigan.
Danielle Button
Head of Finance
Danielle Button is the Head of Finance at Servier Pharmaceuticals. In this role, Danielle is responsible for overseeing the financial operations of the company and defining critical initiatives to expand Servier’s business portfolio.
With nearly 25 years of experience, Danielle is a dedicated leader that has held various positions at top pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, including EMD Serono and Patheon. In these roles, she was responsible for the financial direction of the global biologic’s division as well as several therapeutic areas and portfolio products. She supported global operations, acquisition integrations, strategic decision making, investments and much more. Most recently, Danielle served as Vice President, Finance and Procurement, Americas at Stallergenes Greer where she drove their financial and procuring strategy along with supporting metrics, reporting and action plans. Danielle also worked in the high-tech industry, spending years at Lucent and Parametric Technologies.
Danielle graduated from Babson College with a Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship and Marketing and a Master’s Degree in Finance and Accounting.
Pedro Crisanto
R&D Chief Operating Officer
Pedro Crisanto R&D Chief Operating Officer MPedro Crisanto is the R&D Chief Operating Officer at Servier Pharmaceuticals. In this role, Pedro leads the R&D managers based in the U.S., promotes the implementation of new ways of working and leverages local opportunities.
With nearly 20 years of experience, Pedro is a committed leader in the pharmaceutical industry across multiple functions and countries. He began his career at Servier in his home country of Portugal where he supported the launch of the Portuguese Clinical Operations Department. Following this, Pedro held a global role as Deputy Worldwide Clinical Operations Manager at Servier’s headquarters in Paris. During his time in Paris, Pedro supported global initiatives across different structures, countries and cultures. Prior to joining the U.S.-based office, Pedro spent seven years working as the Director of the International Centre for Therapeutic Research Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and India generating successful outcomes in clinical research, company awareness, and external innovation.
As member of the U.S. R&D leadership council, Pedro is an active voice for R&D promoting the alignment of local initiatives with the global strategy and contributing to developing a high-performance and engaged atmosphere.
Pedro graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon and has a Bachelor of Advanced Studies in Pharmaceutical Medicine from the European Centre of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Basel University in Switzerland.
Erik Lemay
Global Head of External Manufacturing
Erik Lemay is the Global Head of External Manufacturing for Servier Global and is responsible for the End-to-End delivery of Servier’s global portfolio of products that are manufactured at CMO partners. He has 25 years of proven technical operations experience and has developed a strong reputation for managing manufacturing globally and a deep understanding of diversified products and complex manufacturing with a core focus on biologics and vaccines.
Erik’s experience spans across the manufacturing industry and he has played an instrumental role in the development, manufacturing and life-cycle management of several multi-billion-dollar medicines. Prior to Servier, Erik worked with Bristol Myers Squibb, Bayer Diagnostics and Pfizer (formerly Wyeth), which included a two-year assignment overseas.
Erik received a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Ithaca College and a Master of Business Administration from Southern New Hampshire University.
Rabecka (Becky) Martin
Head of Medical
Becky Martin is the Head of Medical at Servier Pharmaceuticals. In this role, Becky is responsible for leading and managing the Medical team to drive innovation and align commercial and scientific goals.
Becky has a deep passion for the value of medical organizations with more than 25 years of biopharma and pharma experience under her belt. She has extensive experience in strategic design and establishment of fully integrated global medical affairs, HEOR/access, patient services and Clinical Development functions stemming from previous roles at Bayer, Alkermes, Biogen, NovoNordisk and EUSA Pharma, among others. She has supported more than 20 product launches across a broad spectrum of therapeutic areas.
Becky holds a mental health focused clinical degree from NYU where she gained valuable clinic and patient care experiences. In addition, Dr. Martin holds Master of Science from the University of Pittsburg and a PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from NYU. She also received an Executive Leadership certificate from Babson College.
Robert Paglia
Head of Market Access
Bob is the Head of Market Access at Servier Pharmaceuticals. He is responsible for all aspects of market access including pricing strategy, government contracting, gross-to-net modeling, payer marketing, health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), real world evidence generation, the National Accounts and GPO teams, Trade and Distribution and specialty pharmacy. In his role, he collaborates with Medical Affairs, Corporate Strategy, Business Development, Patient Services, Global Value and Access, Finance and Public Affairs.
Bob has significant experience in U.S. and global pricing, market access, and HEOR and has held leadership positions in these areas at several life-science consulting companies. Bob has held sales and marketing positions at Johnson & Johnson, Purdue Pharma, and Bristol Myers Squibb. He has experience in launching dozens of biopharmaceutical products in numerous therapeutic areas with specific expertise in oncology, hematology and immunology. For over a decade, Bob was the Founder and President of Evolution Health Initiatives, an industry leading market access consulting and payer-communications company. As an industry thought leader, Bob has published several peer-reviewed studies in oncology clinical outcomes, pricing, market access and health economics. He has made numerous presentations in these areas at congresses in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
Bob received his Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Rutgers University, where he currently lectures on global pricing and market access in the Pharmaceutical Management MBA program. He received his Master of Business Administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Susan Pandya
Head of Cancer Metabolism Global Development Oncology & Immuno-Oncology
Susan Pandya is the Head of Cancer Metabolism Global Development Oncology & Immuno-Oncology at Servier Pharmaceuticals. She is a passionate and innovative oncologist with over a decade of oncology drug development experience in both academic and biotech settings.
Susan comes to Servier from Agios Pharmaceuticals, where she spent the last 5 years leading Oncology Clinical Development. Susan has worked in pivotal programs, including one with IDH1 mutant cholangiocarcinoma, which resulted in submitting a supplemental new drug application for ivosidenib. Earlier in her career, she led the development of early-stage oncology and muscle disease assets at Acceleorn Pharma.
Susan earned her Doctor of Medicine from Tufts University School of Medicine and completed her residency in internal medicine and fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a Harvard University teaching hospital. She continued her career as a board certified Hematologist/Oncologist at BIDMC with a focus on early phase clinical development as the Associate Director of the Phase 1 experimental therapeutics program, while maintaining a clinical practice in GI and Breast Oncology where she mentored medical students, residents and fellows in training.
Wendy Poage
Head of Patient Office
Wendy Poage is the Head of Servier Pharmaceuticals’ Patient Office. In her position, Wendy fuels Servier’s efforts toward improving the lives of patients, their families and caregivers through her management of the Patient Expert Council and tireless efforts to develop patient tools and support services.
Throughout her career, Wendy held leadership positions at several industry-leading companies, including Maximum Medical Solutions, Shire, Baxalta, Global Patient Outcomes and the Institute for Clinical Research. She has over 20 years of experience working with global patient advocacy and has dedicated her life to helping others and actively supports several non-profit advocacy organizations, including serving as President of the Prostate Conditions Education Council and Administrator of Urologic Oncology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
Wendy received her Bachelor of Science in Health and Exercise Science from Colorado State University and earned her Master of Healthcare Administration from Webster University.
Arjun Prasad
Head of Sales and Marketing
Arjun Prasad is the Head of Sales & Marketing at Servier Pharmaceuticals. He is responsible for Sales, Marketing, Analytics, and Operations activities across the portfolio. He leads the teams for ONCASPAR and ASPARLAS in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and the teams responsible for TIBSOVO and IDHIFA in mIDH1/2+ acute myeloid leukemias (AML). Arjun’s team is also responsible for U.S. commercialization of future indications.
Arjun has significant experience across a variety of Commercial roles. Prior to joining Servier Pharmaceuticals, Arjun was at Agios Pharmaceuticals. He was the Vice President of Global Oncology Marketing, as well as the Vice President of Commercial Operations & Analytics for the Oncology and Genetically Defined Diseases portfolios. Prior to Agios, Arjun spent almost 12 years at Genentech, where he led various Sales, Marketing and Analytics teams. Arjun has deep oncology experience, having worked across a number of tumor types, including NSCLC, breast cancer, and melanoma. He has also worked on pipeline and marketed products for a variety of cardiometabolic and immunology indications. Arjun brings a strong track record of strategic agility and drive for results to his role, as well as a focus on collaboration across programs ranging from early stage development to marketed products.
Arjun maintains a long-standing commitment to addressing unmet needs in healthcare. Early in his career he focused on international public health, working as an International Health Officer with the Office of Global Health Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and also as a Public Health volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps.
Arjun received his Bachelor of Arts from Washington University in St. Louis and a Master in Public Health and Master in Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University.
Deniz Razon
Chief Business Officer
Deniz Razon is the Chief Business Officer at Servier Pharmaceuticals. In this role, Deniz is responsible for leading strategy development for each therapeutic area, establishing the operational execution of the acquisition process from deal assessment to management, and representing the United States with global business development and licensing colleagues. Further, she is a Board member of Servier Pharmaceuticals as well as the Gateway Foundation for Cancer Research.
Over 20 years, Deniz has garnered broad pharmaceutical commercial experience across various therapeutic areas. Prior to joining Servier, Deniz held several roles at Shire including the Vice President of Operations for the Internal Medicine and Oncology franchise and Vice President of United States Sales for Lysosomal Storage Disorders and Oncology. Deniz also spent several years at Baxter and Baxalta where she played a pivotal role in preparing the Oncology franchise for growth through comprehensive analyses of licensing and acquisition opportunities and creating commercialization plans for internal and new partnership assets.
Deniz graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Economics. She graduated with honors from University of Michigan with her Master of Business Administration in Strategy and Marketing.
Kelly Schelmm
Head of Communication & Public Affairs
Kelly Schlemm is the Head of Communications & Public Affairs at Servier Pharmaceuticals. Her focus is to devise integrated and aligned communications strategies with the aim of communicating across all stakeholders Servier’s progress, our vision for the future and the roadmap of how we intend to get there. Further, she plays a key role in shaping the company’s policy initiatives in alignment with Corporate Sustainability efforts. She strives daily to meet patient needs and ensure their voice is heard.
Kelly is an executive with wide experience in corporate communications, media relations, investor relations, business development, product and portfolio, brand strategy, crisis communications and public affairs. Kelly previously served as Director of Takeda’s R&D External and Innovation Network Communications. Her career is distinguished by extensive business development and corporate growth experience including leadership roles in the launch and growth of multiple startups from conception to multi-billion-dollar enterprises. She has held management positions across biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and in communications agencies such as Shire, Baxalta and Ogilvy.
Kelly received her Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Seton Hall University.
Latarsha Stewart
Head of Compliance
Latarsha Stewart is the Head of Compliance and responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining a comprehensive and effective ethics and compliance program for all aspects of Servier business. As chair of the Ethics and Compliance Committee, Latarsha applies her depth of healthcare compliance experience to foster accountability for ethics and compliance throughout all parts of the organization.
Over the course of her career, Latarsha has developed significant ethics and compliance leadership experience in the oncology pharmaceutical space, with highly developed skills in leadership and cross-functional coordination. As Head of Compliance for the Takeda Global Oncology Business Unit, she was an impactful member of the Global Ethics & Compliance Leadership Team and oversaw the development and implementation of key ethics and compliance initiatives. Latarsha has implemented practical compliance policies and procedures, participated in enterprise risk management, conducted internal auditing, monitoring and investigations and – as a hallmark of her talent and passion – executed exceptionally innovative and effective training on a range of ethics and compliance topics.
Latarsha received her Bachelor of Science in Communication from Cornell University. She earned her Juris Doctor and Master of Science degree from Boston University. Latarsha is also a member of the New York Bar.
Eli Taube
Head of the North America Clinical Operations Hub
Eli Taube is the Head of the North America Clinical Operations Hub at Servier Pharmaceuticals. Eli and his teams in the U.S. and Canada are responsible for the execution of Servier’s clinical studies in North America starting at investigational new drug enabling activities, planning, initiating and conduct of clinical studies, in addition to new drug application (NDA) and biologic licenses applications (BLA) supporting activities. Eli works to drive the team to develop and advance methodologies that will facilitate efficient planning and execution of clinical studies, enabling above benchmark delivery from study concept to NDA/ BLA filing.
Eli has held management positions across biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies including Baxter, Baxalta, Shire and Quintiles (IQVIA). His career is distinguished by a wide range of positions within clinical operation organizations from hands on positions up to therapeutic area team’s management. His mission is to enhance clinical operational teams’ knowledge of the clinical development cascade allowing them to influence all development steps with a focus on study design, regulatory and translational medicine aspects.
Eli received his Bachelor of Science in Biology and Masters of Science in Physiology from the Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Rui (Sammi) Tang
VP, Global Biometrics Head
Sammi Tang is the Vice President, Global Head of Biometrics at Servier Pharmaceuticals, a leading expert in the field of biometrics and is well known in the pharmaceutical industry for her leadership and expertise.
Before joining Servier, Sammi was the Biostatistics Therapeutic Area Head of Oncology, Transplants and Prematurity Neonates at Shire Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, she worked at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where she led multiple oncology and hematology pipelines. Sammi also worked at Amgen, Mayo Clinical Biostatistics and Merck. Previously, she served as the biostatistics lead of Companion Diagnostics & Global Statistics Lead for multiple oncology clinical programs from early to late phases at Amgen. She is also an active member in American Statistics Association and International Chinese Statistics Association to serve the biostatistics and data science professional community.
Sammi has great experience in CDRH, CBER, CDER, health Canada, EMA and Asian regulatory agencies interactions. She has authored more than 40 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals on methodology, study design, data analysis and reporting and is a co-inventor of several patents. Besides her daily work, Sammi actively promotes data science through volunteer activities. She is co-founder of a non-profit organization, DahShu, founded to promote research and education in data sciences with almost 5000 members internationally. She also leads teams in the Drug Information Association (DIA) design scientific working group of oncology drug development and small population working group for rare disease statistical methodology development.
Sammi graduated from the University of Michigan Technology University with a Doctor of Philosophy in statistics genetics.
Nick Stefos
Head of Human Resources
Nick Stefos Head of Human Resources Nick Stefos is the Head of Human Resources (HR) at Servier Pharmaceuticals. In his role, Nick identifies the people implications of business strategies and aligns employees and company talent against the evolving needs of a growing organization.
A thoughtful leader, Nick has more than 20 years of experience as an HR professional, holding roles at large and mid-sized pharmaceutical companies with a focus on managing teams locally and globally. Nick previously held the role of Executive Human Resources Business Partner at Servier Pharmaceuticals where he partnered with both U.S. based and global industry partners as well as R&D leaders on integration, talent acquisition and talent development. Prior to his time at Servier, Nick was the Global Head of Human Resource Business Partners for R&D and Business Development at EMD Serono.
Nick received his Bachelor of Science in Economics from Nichols College.
Mark Yunger
Head of Information Technology
Mark Yunger Head of Information Technology Mark Yunger is the Head of Information Technology at Servier Pharmaceuticals. He works closely with R&D, Technical Operations, Commercial, and Corporate functions. He is responsible for leveraging information technology to accelerate therapies through the pipeline in our pursuit to improve patients’ lives. He guides the development and partnering of the company’s digital therapeutics portfolio.
With over 20 years of technology leadership experience within the biotech and high-tech industries, Mark is a proven leader in building world class technology organizations. Prior to Servier Pharmaceuticals, Mark was Head of Information Technology for Seres Therapeutics where he led the building of foundational capabilities to advance microbiome-based products to cure infectious diseases including C. difficile and Ulcerative colitis. Mark was the Vice President of Infrastructure and Operations at Biogen where he led a team of technologists that maintained Biogen’s applications from R&D, to Pharmaceutical Operations and Technology, to Commercial as well as empowered the acceleration of Biogen’s business through designing and building leading-edge cloud services and high performance computing.
Mark received his Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Western Michigan University. He earned his Master of Science in Industrial Organizational Psychology from Springfield College. He continued his education earning a Doctor of Philosophy in Labor Market and Workforce Development from Northeastern University.
