Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited announced Ken Takeshita, MD will be named the new Global Head of Research & Development as of April 1, 2021. On that date, Dr. Junichi Koga will retire from the position, after a successful and industrious career, including more than 12 years at Daiichi Sankyo. Dr. Takeshita joins Daiichi Sankyo from Kite Pharma, a Gilead Company, where he was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Development since 2019, and interim Head of Research. Ken is a highly experienced physician with deep experience in oncology and rare diseases. Prior to Kite, he served as Senior Vice President of Clinical Research at Sorrento Therapeutics and Corporate Vice President of Clinical R&D at Celgene. He has led full-scale global drug development programs across hematological and solid tumors at Kite, Celgene and Amgen. Before joining the biopharmaceutical industry, Ken was on the faculty in Hematology at Yale University School of Medicine and New York University School of Medicine. He earned a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from Harvard University and his medical degree from Yale University. He received post-doctoral training in hematology, oncology and developmental biology at Yale and in hematopoiesis at University of Tokyo.