Baruch S. Blumberg Institute Elects Wayne Yetter, MBA, as Board Chair

DOYLESTOWN, PA (March 2018) – The Baruch S. Blumberg Institute, established by the Hepatitis B Foundation to fulfill its research mission, is pleased to announce the election of Wayne Yetter, MBA, as its board chair. Mr. Yetter, a resident of Carversville, PA, was the founding CEO of Astra Merck and former CEO of Novartis Pharmaceuticals U.S., and has served as a member of the Blumberg and Hepatitis B Foundation boards.

“The Baruch S. Blumberg Institute is proud to have Mr. Yetter lead our board,” said Blumberg Institute President and Co-Founder, Timothy M. Block, PhD. “He brings decades of successful research company executive experience to our organization, having served in positions of the greatest responsibility”.

With a career of 30 years in the pharmaceutical field, Mr. Yetter has served in executive positions at Pfizer, Merck, Astra Merck (now named Astra Zeneca), and Novartis. Other positions held by Mr. Yetter include being Chief Operating Officer of healthcare market research company, IMS Health, and chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Synavant, Inc.

Mr. Yetter has worked as chairman of the Board and lead director of several public biotech and healthcare companies. He is a member of the Boards of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, and the National Pharmaceutical Council. Mr. Yetter has also been invited to be part of the board of trustees for Wilkes University, and served as director of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management at the Wharton School.

He earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Wilkes University, and an MBA from Bryant University.

About the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute: The Baruch S. Blumberg Institute is an independent, nonprofit research institute established in 2003 by the Hepatitis B Foundation to conduct discovery research and nurture translational biotechnology in an environment conducive to interaction, collaboration and focus. It was renamed in 2013 to honor Baruch S. Blumberg, who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the hepatitis B virus and co-founded the Hepatitis B Foundation. To learn more, visit www.blumberginstitute.org.

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