Susanne Schaffert

Novartis is eager to establish itself as a pioneer in cancer drug innovation and Schaffert is helping drive that effort. She became president of Novartis’s oncology unit in January 2019 after serving as president of Advanced Accelerator Applications, a company that was snatched up by Novartis for its unique approach to targeted cancer therapies in 2018. According to the company, the appointment is paying serious dividends. For instance: Novartis’s global cancer portfolio rang in $6.9 billion in sales in just the first half of 2019. That’s nearly 40% of the company’s overall revenues and a 9% growth rate year-over-year. That growth is, in part, a reflection of Schaffert's work to expand access to Kymriah, a pioneering blood cancer treatment that reprograms patients’ own immune cells to fight the disease, to more than 160 treatment centers across 20 countries.

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