Astellas announced three senior-level promotions and one new hire within its Medical and Development (M&D) organization. Erkut Bahceci, M.D., was promoted to vice president of Medical Science for Hematology in the Oncology Therapeutic Area (TA); Leticia Delgado-Herrera was promoted to vice president, Rx+ M&D Head; Wendi Lau was promoted to vice president of Operational Improvement & Reporting Excellence (OIRE); and Juan Maya, M.D., joined Astellas as the vice president of Medical Science for the Medical Specialties TA. In his new role as vice president of Medical Science for Hematology within the Oncology TA, Bahceci will report directly to Steven Benner, M.D., senior vice president and TA Head, Oncology. He will be responsible for providing global medical leadership for development programs evaluating potential treatments for a variety of blood cancers. Prior to his recent promotion, Bahceci served as executive medical director in the Oncology TA at Astellas and led the hematology group in Medical Oncology. In her new role, Delgado-Herrera will initially report to Benner to represent M&D for Astellas' new Rx+ capability, as part of Astellas' new Corporate Strategic Plan (CSP), with a dotted line reporting structure into Yuta Watanabe, vice president, Rx+ Business Accelerator. Delgado-Herrera will provide vision, leadership, and strategic direction for development plans, evaluation, and implementation of Rx+ in Astellas globally. This newly established function and role will ensure alignment cross-functionally, while also creating the appropriate structure to leverage the knowledge and expertise of Astellas' existing M&D functions and capabilities so the Company can successfully build Rx+ programs. Delgado-Herrera has been with Astellas for 11 years. She most recently served as executive director, global development project leader (GDPL), Medical Specialties. During her tenure in the healthcare industry, Delgado-Herrera has published numerous articles, has achieved patents granted in several disease areas, and has received a number of industry awards. She is actively involved in several non-profit organizations, including advancing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) in youth education. In her newly appointed role, Lau will report directly to Nori Kuwahara, senior vice president, Planning & Administration. The central priority in Lau's new role will be maximizing operational excellence, a key strategic goal in the new CSP. Lau will be responsible for providing leadership of OIRE: a newly formed, strategic organization with a focus on utilizing integrated and continuous processes to help identify and evaluate cross-functional opportunities for operational excellence throughout the global M&D organization. A focus on value creation and risk reduction will be managed through the implementation of standards and metrics. Lau has been with Astellas – and Fujisawa, one of the original founding companies that merged to create Astellas – for more than 27 years. She has served in a variety of leadership roles across the Company, including in Clinical Operations and Medical Writing. More recently, Lau headed a new organization, Business Operations and Portfolio Analytics (BOPA), to drive operational excellence, proactively support information management and deliver analytical tools to empower proactive and strategic decision making. In his new role as vice president, Maya will report directly to Salim Mujais, M.D., senior vice president and TA Head, Medical Specialties. He will play a leading role in overseeing the medical team within Development across several under-served areas of significant unmet need, including urology, nephrology, women's health, immunology, infectious diseases, CNS and chronic pain. Maya has a career spanning more than 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry and over five years of experience in academia. Maya joins Astellas from Amgen where he served in roles at both the global development and U.S. medical lead levels for cardiovascular treatment programs. Maya has been involved in more than 150 clinical trials and has numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. In his academic career, Maya was an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Indiana University in Indianapolis, and has held appointments at the Universidad del Valle in Colombia and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.