Denmark’s ALK names North America and international R&D senior vice president

ALK has named Hendrik Nolte new Senior Vice President R&D strategist in North America and International markets including China, and will work in collaboration with ALK’s partners for Russia, Japan, South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Denmark-headquartered company said Friday.

Henrik Jacobi, ALK’s Executive Vice President of Research and Development, expects Nolte’s reputation in the allergy immunotherapy field to make him a key figure in the scale-up of the company’s North American operations. Nolte is also expected to be an important contributor to ALK’s work to globalise the SLIT-tablet portfolio.

In his previous role as Head of Respiratory at Merck Sharp & Dome, Nolte led the development and registration efforts for ALK’s grass and ragweed SLIT-tablets – Grastek and Ragwitek, as well as for the house dust mite SLIT-tablet. On Wednesday, ALK announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the Biologics License Application (BLA) for its SLIT tablet.

Hendrik Nolte said that his return to ALK will be driven by continued motivated by both the unmet medical need of patients, particularly those with respiratory allergies, and by the growing scientific evidence in favour of treatment with allergy immunotherapy.

Hendrik Nolte has held roles in clinical research at Roche, Hycor Biomedical and ALK. Before assuming leadership roles at Merck in 2005, Hendrik Nolte was an associate professor at the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Copenhagen