Adam B. Raff has been appointed as Director and Medical Advisor in Translational Medicine and Thomas Hultsch has been appointed as Head of Translational Medicine.
Adam Raff’s primary objective will be to support LEO Pharma’s ambitions to advance science within dermatology through translational medicine.
Raff is a Doctor of Medicine (Hons) and holds a Doctorate in Philosophy in Systems Biology and Disease as well as a Bachelor of Science in Biology (Hons) from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In his current position, Adam Raff works as a Dermatologist at the Department of Dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, as well as a Dermatology Instructor at Harvard medical School, MA.
A new translational medicine unit in Boston
With the addition of a new Translational Medicine Unit in Boston, LEO Pharma is taking another important step towards realising its mission of helping people achieve healthy skin by addressing high unmet needs, it states.
“At LEO Pharma, we work relentlessly to help patients with skin diseases. We are driven by our desire to offer new, innovative medicines better and faster than anyone else, and our aspiration is to help 125 million patients by 2025. The addition of the new unit in Boston will boost our position in Translational Medicine and help us achieve exactly that. It will strengthen LEO Pharma as a science driven organization by increasing our level of science and dermatology knowledge and thus enable us to explore cutting edge technologies in patients more rapidly,” says Kim Kjoeller, Executive Vice President for Global Research and Development at LEO Pharma.
“A strong passion within the company”
In addition to his doctorate degrees, Adam Raff has completed extensive training in Photomedicine, Dermatology and Internal Medicine. He has played a key role in establishing the Education Committee and Scholars program of the AID (Advancing Innovation in Dermatology) and has received numerous honours and awards for his work in identifying and developing novel systems and technologies to improve skin health.
“I am joining LEO Pharma because of its people, passion, and purpose. Leading up to my transition to the company, I had the pleasure to work with some incredible people at LEO Pharma and was struck by their creativity, intelligence, and dedication. There is a strong passion within the company to make a positive impact in the lives of patients with skin disease and, ultimately, it is LEO Pharma’s patient centric purpose that inspires me,” said Adam B. Raff, Director and Medical Advisor, LEO Pharma Translational Medicine Unit, Boston, MA.
A new Head of Translational Medicine
Thomas Hultsch’s primary task as Head of Translational Medicine will be to build LEO Pharma’s foothold in Translational Medicine across the US and Europe and lead the establishment of a new Translational Medicine group in Boston.
A precision medicine platform
The appointment underpins LEO Pharma’s objective to take the global lead in translational dermatology and immunology, among other by strengthening the way the company uses novel technologies in building a precision medicine platform, and by translating scientific and patient insights to further build the company’s disease understanding, the company states.
Thomas Hultsch
Hultsch is a Doctor of Medicine, a board-certified Dermatologist and Allergist and received his venia legendi for immunology from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. He trained as a post-doc and fellow at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland focusing on molecular biology, cell biology and clinical immunology/allergy.
He comes from a position as Senior Director for Translational Medicine at Sanofi US, where he successfully built and operationalized a translational medicine team and brings a wealth of research experience to LEO Pharma, including five years of basic research and more than 15 years of clinical research from different positions in the area of inflammatory diseases in the US and Europe.
“I am thrilled to join LEO Pharma at a time of break-through discoveries in multiple areas of skin biology and technology, providing unparalleled opportunities to drive innovation in dermatology for the benefit of patients world-wide,” said Thomas Hultsch, Head of Translational Medicine, LEO Pharma, Boston, MA.
Photo of Adam Raff and Thomas Hultsch: LEO Pharma
