NEW YORK, Dec. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Royalty Pharma plc (Nasdaq: RPRX) today announced an expansion of its leadership team:

• Jim Reddoch, PhD will assume increased responsibilities with a new role of Chief Scientific Officer, which is in addition to his position as Co-Head of Research & Investments.
• Marshall Urist, MD, PhD has been promoted to Executive Vice President and Co-Head of Research & Investments.
• Sandy Balkin, PhD will join Royalty Pharma as Senior Vice President, Strategy and Analytics.

Pablo Legorreta, Royalty Pharma’s founder and Chief Executive Officer, commented “We are thrilled to expand Jim’s role and promote Marshall to co-head the Research & Investments group. This team is rapidly growing and with our increased transaction activity, these new roles expand our bandwidth to better assess and execute on the many opportunities to continue to grow our business.”

“We are in a golden age of biotechnology innovation. With the creation of the Chief Scientific Officer role and the implementation of a new Strategy and Analytics group, we plan to increase our use of data and analytics. Sandy is uniquely positioned to bridge the worlds of data and biopharma innovation, adding a new dimension to Royalty Pharma’s analytical capabilities.”

In his role as Executive Vice President, Research & Investments, Jim Reddoch has led the team at Royalty Pharma that focuses on sourcing and analyzing new investment opportunities and partnerships for over 12 years. In his capacity as Chief Scientific Officer, he will continue to deepen the team’s knowledge base and will work with Sandy to build out a newly created Strategy and Analytics function which will further expand Royalty Pharma’s rigorous approach to mapping out and vetting opportunities to fund innovation in life sciences.

Marshall Urist has sourced and analyzed numerous royalty acquisitions as Senior Vice President, Research & Investments since joining Royalty Pharma in 2013. As co-head of the Research & Investments group, he will provide leadership and forward-thinking as Royalty Pharma’s opportunities to partner with life science innovators expands. Pablo Legorreta remarked, “Marshall’s medical and scientific experience will provide unique direction to the Research & Investments group.”

Sandy Balkin joins Royalty Pharma from Truist Securities where he was head of data strategy and data science, setting priorities for the bank and collaborating with research analysts on novel projects. Previously, he was head of integrated insights and platforms at Sanofi. He has also held leadership positions at Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim, with an emphasis on data and analytics. Sandy has a PhD in business administration with a focus on statistics from Penn State.

About Royalty Pharma plc

Founded in 1996, Royalty Pharma is the largest buyer of biopharmaceutical royalties and a leading funder of innovation across the biopharmaceutical industry, collaborating with innovators from academic institutions, research hospitals and not-for-profits through small and mid-cap biotechnology companies to leading global pharmaceutical companies. Royalty Pharma has assembled a portfolio of royalties which entitles it to payments based directly on the top-line sales of many of the industry’s leading therapies. Royalty Pharma funds innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry both directly and indirectly - directly when it partners with companies to co-fund late-stage clinical trials and new product launches in exchange for future royalties, and indirectly when it acquires existing royalties from the original innovators. Royalty Pharma’s current portfolio includes royalties on more than 45 commercial products, including AbbVie and J&J’s Imbruvica, Astellas and Pfizer’s Xtandi, Biogen’s Tysabri, Gilead’s HIV franchise, Merck’s Januvia, Novartis’ Promacta, and Vertex’s Kalydeco, Symdeko, Orkambi and Trikafta, and four development-stage product candidates. For more information, visit www.royaltypharma.com.