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| Alonzo Weems |
Alonzo Weems, currently deputy general counsel, will take the top compliance post over from Melissa Barnes upon her retirement on June 27 after more than 26 years with the company, Lilly announced.
The news follows the company's recent appointment of Anat Hakim, formerly of WellCare Health Plans, as general counsel, who replaced Mike Harrington upon his Feb. 3 retirement.
Like Hakim, Weems will report to Lilly Chairman and CEO David A. Ricks, who said in a statement Tuesday that the company is "in the midst of an exciting period of growth and is driven by our purpose to create new medicines for people in need around the world."
On Feb. 26, the company announced that the U.S. government agreed to pay $210 million to buy a minimum of 100,000 doses of its proprietary antibody therapy — a cocktail of the drugs bamlanivimab and etesevimab — for treating COVID-19 patients.
In his current role, Weems is responsible for corporate legal oversight of commercial transactions, litigation, regulatory and human resources.
His previous roles at the company included general counsel of Lilly Canada, general counsel for Lilly USA and general counsel for the company's global biomedicines and diabetes business units.
"Alonzo's legal roles, including extensive experience directly supporting our commercial efforts, make him the right leader to advance our strong compliance culture and lead our global risk management effort," Ricks said.
Prior to joining Lilly in 1997, Weems was an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board.
Weems was not available to comment for this article.
In its February announcement regarding the deal with the government, the company said it had received emergency use authorization for the antibody treatment, which is geared toward recently diagnosed patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 symptoms "who are at high risk of progressing to severe cases and possible hospitalization."
The agreement gives the government the option to purchase an additional 1.1 million doses through November "under the same terms and subject to medical need in the country," the company said.
In addition to Weems' appointment, the company announced Tuesday that Edgardo Hernandez, an executive in its global parenteral drug product and device manufacturing unit, will succeed Myles O'Neill as president of Lilly's manufacturing operations upon O'Neill's May 2 retirement.
Weems and Hernandez will both report to Ricks and join Lilly's executive committee.
"I along with our executive team look forward to collaborating closely with [Weems and Hernandez] as we work to overcome many of the world's most pressing unmet medical needs," Ricks said.
--Editing by Aaron Pelc.
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