James Sabry, global head at Roche Pharma Partnering, is moving on from the Swiss pharma giant.<\/p>\n
Roche announced Monday that Sabry was retiring after 14 years at the company and stepping down from his spot on the corporate executive committee.<\/p>\n
He will be succeeded by Boris Za\u00eftra, Roche\u2019s head of group business development, who will take on the title of head of corporate business development on July 1. He will report to Roche CEO Thomas Schinecker.<\/p>\n
An industry stalwart, Sabry blazed his own trail prior to joining Roche in 2010 when he was appointed head of Genentech Partnering, a role he held until mid-2018 when he was named to his current position.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1997, he founded Cytokinetics, which he led as president and CEO until 2006. He remains a member of the company\u2019s scientific advisory board. From 2008 to 2010, he led Arete Therapeutics as president and CEO.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He has also served as a council member of the American Society of Cell Biology as well as a member of the board of directors for HopeLab, the California Life Sciences Association and Chugai Pharma.<\/p>\n
Sabry began his career as a neurology resident at Harvard Medical School, rising to chief resident before departing to serve in the department of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco.<\/p>\n
Over the years, Sabry has been a key figure in terms of bolstering the pipelines for both Genentech and Roche as a whole.<\/p>\n
Just last fall, Genentech\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0onto a $47 million partnership with biotech Orionis Biosciences to focus on discovering novel small molecule therapies across various therapeutic areas.<\/p>\n