Sidney Taurel, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Eli Lilly and Company, announced that the retirement of August Watanabe, M.D., executive vice president for science and technology and president of Lilly Research Laboratories. Watanabe will retire from Lilly and its board of directors, effective June 30. Succeeding Watanabe will be Steven Paul, M.D., currently group vice president for Lilly Research Laboratories, who has been promoted to executive vice president for science and technology and president of Lilly Research Laboratories, effective July 1. Paul will report to Taurel and will become a member of the company's policy committee.
"Gus Watanabe has had an amazing impact on Lilly Research Laboratories," said Taurel. "He leaves a legacy of excellence in building one of the finest pharmaceutical R&D organizations in the world that is poised to deliver on the most promising pipeline in the industry. Lilly's research productivity, as measured by the estimated value of the pipeline, has increased dramatically during his tenure. It has been a privilege to work with Gus, and we wish him the best as he moves to the next stage of his life."
During Watanabe's tenure at Lilly, the Lilly R&D organization grew substantially stronger in terms of talent, innovation, resources, and productivity. From 1994 to 2003, the number of employees involved in R&D grew from about 3,500 to more than 8,000 today, and some of the top biomedical scientific leaders in the world have joined Lilly to lead the discovery and development of breakthrough drugs. Lilly's current investment of more than $2 billion per year on research and development represents a nearly threefold increase, or 12 per cent compound annual growth, over the last decade. During Watanabe's R&D leadership, Lilly launched 11 new drugs, including three this year. In addition, the company is poised to launch up to four additional products by the end of 2004.
Watanabe joined Lilly in 1990 as a vice president of Lilly Research Laboratories. He was named president of Lilly Research Laboratories in 1994 and promoted to executive vice president of science and technology in 1996. Watanabe was a full-time faculty member of the department of medicine of Indiana University School of Medicine from 1972 to 1990 when he joined Lilly. From 1983 to 1990, he was professor and chairman of the department of medicine. During his academic career, Watanabe co-authored more than 100 scientific publications and book chapters and served on the editorial boards of scholarly journals and as an officer in several national academic organizations, including the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association.
Watanabe is a director of Guidant Corporation; the Indiana University Foundation; the Regenstrief Foundation, Inc.; the Indiana State Symphony Society; the Park-Tudor Foundation; and Christel House. He is a member of the board of governors of the Riley Children's Foundation and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Physicians. He is also a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and Alpha Omega Alpha, a medical honorary society. He is a past chairman of the executive committee of the science and regulatory section of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Watanabe received a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Wheaton College in 1963 and his doctor of medicine degree from the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1967. He did additional postgraduate work in clinical pharmacology at the Laboratory of Clinical Science of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and in cardiology at Indiana University Medical Center.
Speaking of Watanabe's successor, Dr. Paul, Taurel said: "I am delighted to have Steve Paul take the helm of our talented R&D organization. After an extremely successful career in academia and at the National Institute of Mental Health, Steve has brought to Lilly his deep scientific and medical expertise. During his 10 years at Lilly, Steve has had a significant, positive impact, first on our neuroscience research efforts and then, more broadly, on all our discovery and early development activities."
Paul joined Lilly in 1993 as vice president of central nervous system discovery and decision phase medical research in LRL and was named vice president, therapeutic area discovery research and clinical investigation, in 1996. Paul was named group vice president for Lilly Research Laboratories in 1998. Before joining Lilly, Paul served as scientific director of the National Institute of Mental Health, in Bethesda, Maryland, as well as chief of the clinical neuroscience branch at NIMH. Paul received a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude with honors, in biology and psychology from Tulane University in 1972. He received a Master of Science degree in anatomy and neuroanatomy and his doctor of medicine degree, both in 1975, from the Tulane University School of Medicine. Following an internship in neurology at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, he served as a resident in psychiatry and an instructor in the department of psychiatry at The University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine.
Paul has authored or co-authored more than 450 papers and invited book chapters and serves on the editorial boards of numerous scientific journals and as a grant reviewer for several National Institutes of Health (NIH) committees. He is currently a member of the NIH advisory committee to the director (ACD). He has been listed as one of the most highly cited neuroscientists in the world (1980-2000) by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), and, in 1997, was elected to membership in the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Our leadership transition plan has been thorough, and Steve is clearly the right person to take the helm of Lilly Research Laboratories," said Watanabe. "During Steve's tenure as head of discovery research, the organization underwent a period of tremendous growth and productivity, dramatically increasing both the quantity and quality of drug candidates. In fact, in 2002, Lilly discovered three times as many new drug candidates as had been discovered annually in the mid-1990s. Additionally, the success rate of taking molecules from drug candidate selection to the start of Phase I has risen from 50 per cent to more than 80 per cent. These are very impressive accomplishments and underscore Steve's organizational and scientific leadership abilities."