Andrew Plump, MD, PhD is the president of Research & Development at Takeda and serves as a member of the company’s board of directors. Early in his tenure Dr. Plump orchestrated a multi-year strategic and cultural transformation that has resulted in a renewed focus on innovation, streamlined global footprint, prioritized therapeutic areas of focus, a rich network of partnerships and a modality-diverse portfolio of newly approved and promising late-stage development experimental therapies. He also championed efforts to build an exciting and sustainable early development and research pipeline, founded on strong translational science as well as platform capabilities in cell therapy, gene therapy and data sciences. Prior to Takeda, Dr. Plump served as head of Research & Translational Medicine, deputy to the president of R&D at Sanofi. Prior to Sanofi, Dr. Plump served as worldwide cardiovascular research head at Merck. Dr. Plump has been recognized for his contributions to the healthcare industry, education and the arts. He serves on several not-for-profit boards including the board of directors of the PhRMA Foundation, the Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Foundation and the Biomedical Science Careers Program. He also serves in advisory board positions at BioCentury and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Plump received his MD from the University of California, San Francisco, his PhD in cardiovascular genetics at Rockefeller University and his BS from MIT.