UPWARD MOVE

Deborah Dunsire

Chief executive

Millennium Pharmaceuticals

DEBORAH DUNSIRE has joined Cambridge, Mass.-based Millennium Pharmaceutical as chief executive. She replaces Mark Levin, who has led the company since its inception

Dunsire, who most recently served as leader of Novartis' cancer drug business in North America, expects to leverage her expertise to help the biopharma bolster its sales and marketing functions.

"We'll be looking to the pipeline we have and continuing to accelerate those products and bring them to market in order to make good on the goal of delivering innovation," Dunsire said. "We will also scan the external environment for any opportunities. Lastly, we will be as efficient as possible with how we spend our resources."

Dunsire, 43, is a native of South Africa and was a general practitioner before joining Sandoz (which later became Novartis) in 1989.

"As a physician, you impact a very small number of patients very intimately," she said. "But in the pharmaceutical industry, you can impact hundreds of thousands of patients with new and innovative medicines. That's really what attracted me to stay in the industry."

Dunsire moved from South Africa to Novartis' headquarters in Basel, Switzerland in 1991. She then relocated to the U.S. to join the company's oncology group in 1994. Three years later, she was asked to lead Novartis' North American cancer drug business, taking on all commercial functions, including sales, marketing, new product commercial planning, scientific field operations, medical affairs and business relations.

Dunsire, who lives in Randolph, N.J., with her husband and two sons, ages 9 and 7, is in the process of looking for a new home in the Boston area to be closer to Millennium's headquarters.

"In the winter, we like to go skiing as a family," she said. "We spend a lot of time in New Hampshire, so the move to Boston is very favorable toward being able to get there more often."

-Stephen McGuire