Michael Thien Head & SVP, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Mike has 35 years of experience in the BioPharma industry, having spent 16 years in R&D and 17 years in manufacturing; retiring as a senior vice president from Merck & Co. (MSD) in March of 2022 and recently becoming Head, Pharmaceutical Sciences in R&D at Takeda Pharmaceuticals in September 2022. During his 33 years at Merck, Mike led process development/new product introduction, operations, facility construction/start-up and divisional strategy/transformation/culture. Under his leadership, Mike’s areas have introduced manufacturing products which have changed medical paradigms for treatment. This includes the medically significant CRIXIVAN (the first effective AIDS therapy) and ERVEBO (the only vaccine for ebola), as well as large market drugs like JANUVIA (for Type II diabetes – $6BB/yr in revenue) and KEYTRUDA (for cancer – ~$20BB/yr in revenue) and has overseen more than 50 new product introductions.
In addition, he has led the timely delivery and start-up of over $8 BB in new manufacturing facilities for vaccines and biologics. He has successfully led 3 major transformation projects and large segments of 2 company integrations. Mike now heads the Pharm Sciences group in Takeda R&D and is responsible for product definition and process and method development and characterization from the Research interface through introduction to manufacturing.
Mike received his PhD from MIT, his BS from Caltech. He chairs a hospital board, sits on two Boards of Directors (including the board of Ireland’s NIBRT), and has been a member or chaired academic visiting committees for MIT, UTexas, Tufts, Johns Hopkins and U Delaware. He currently lives in Westfield, New Jersey.