Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. announced the appointment of Reshema Kemps-Polanco, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Novartis US, to its Board of Directors. Ms. Kemps-Polanco has extensive pharmaceutical industry experience in leading commercial organizations that will provide a wealth of healthcare business leadership knowledge and sales and marketing expertise to Charles River?s Board. As a member of the Board, Ms. Kemps-Polanco will serve on the Compensation and Strategic Planning and Capital Allocation Committees.

Ms. Kemps-Polanco has 25 years of pharmaceutical industry experience and currently serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of Novartis US, the U.S. operations of global biopharmaceutical company, Novartis AG. In this role, she is responsible for the end-to-end commercialization across four therapeutic areas, including oncology, immunology, neurology, and cardiovascular/renal/metabolic conditions. Prior to rejoining Novartis in 2021, Ms. Kemps-Polanco held several leadership positions at Johnson & Johnson from 2014 until 2021, most recently as President, Janssen U.S. Cardiovascular & Metabolism and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Puerto Rico.

In this role, she was responsible for developing and delivering the business strategy and driving the growth initiatives for these businesses. Ms. Kemps-Polanco began her pharmaceutical industry career at Novartis in sales and held management positions of increasing responsibility, including leading the U.S. commercial team?s marketing strategy for its leukemia franchise and as U.S. brand leader for its osteoporosis therapy. Through her healthcare leadership roles, Ms. Kemps-Polanco is committed to decreasing healthcare inequities in screening and diagnosis and creating equal access to quality healthcare for all patients.

She is a board member of the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), a coalition of chief executives focused on policies that make quality healthcare accessible to all Americans, a member of the Healthcare Businesswomen?s Association (HBA) Global Advisory Board, and the CEO Roundtable on Cancer.