Biogen names Priya Singhal as Executive Vice President, Head of Development

Biogen has promoted Priya Singhal - currently Head of Global Safety and Regulatory Sciences and Interim Head of Research & Development (R&D) – to Executive Vice President, Head of Development.

This follows the company’s decision to separate Research and Development into two distinct functions that will both report directly to the CEO.

In addition, Biogen has initiated a search for a new Executive Vice President, Head of Research. Dr. Singhal will serve as interim head of Research until a new leader is named.

Priya Singhal, MD, MPH most recently served as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Safety and Regulatory Sciences and Interim Head of R&D at Biogen. She also had oversight of Japan and China R&D. Dr. Singhal rejoined Biogen in 2020, having previously led Biogen’s Global Safety and Benefit Risk Management as the interim co-lead and Senior Vice President of Global Development. In this role she managed the worldwide benefit-risk strategy for the portfolio as well as for the filings and approvals of six products.

She joined Biogen in late 2012 as Vice President Clinical Trials and Benefit-Risk Management.

Prior to her return to Biogen, Dr Singhal served as Head of R&D and Manufacturing at Zafgen Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging its proprietary knowledge of MetAP2 systems biology to develop novel therapies for patients affected by a range of metabolic diseases. From 2008-2012 she was at Vertex Pharmaceuticals where she served as the Vice President, Medical Affairs and held roles of increasing seniority in Global Patient Safety. She began her drug-development career at Millennium Pharmaceuticals where she led benefit-risk for Velcade and two compounds in the development portfolio.

Preceding her career in the biotechnology industry, Dr Singhal completed her MPH in International Health at Harvard School of Public Health and obtained her training in Internal Medicine in Mumbai, India.