Singapore: Japan-headquartered Astellas Pharma, a global pharmaceutical company, will implement revisions in its global management structure, including top management, effective April 1, 2013.

Dr Sef Kurstjens, currently president and CEO of Agensys, has been appointed to the post of chief medical officer (CMO). He will report directly to the president & CEO. The post of CMO has been newly created to further integrate and enhance Astellas' delivery of global medical solutions.

Additionally, Astellas will promote the global enhancement of the Medical and Pharmacovigilance functions in order to maintain the quality of Astellas' branded products based on medical need.

In other changes, Astellas will pursue the further enhancement of global quality assurance, regulatory affairs and pharmacovigilance as well as increased operational excellence in these functions. All related functions in each region will be globally integrated under one global leader. A new position of Global pharmacovigilance head has been created to manage all regional PV organizations.

Also, new positions of global functional heads, which manages all regional organizations for quality assurance, clinical research quality assurance (CRQA) and regulatory affairs, respectively, will be established. They will report to the QA & RA head in Astellas Pharma.