By Fineline Cube 
AstraZeneca (AZ; NASDAQ: AZN) China announced a sweeping re‑organisation that removes the country‑level Head of Medical Affairs and replaces it with a Business Unit Medical Affairs Head for each commercial division. The new roles will report directly to their respective Business Unit Heads and, on a dotted‑line basis, to the Global or Regional Head of Medical Affairs.
Key Personnel Move
- Ms. Yang Haiying – Vice President and former Head of Medical Affairs for AstraZeneca China – has departed the company to explore external opportunities. Her exit underscores the scale of the re‑organisation.
Rationale for Decentralisation
- Direct medical support to individual business units is expected to tighten alignment between medical strategy and commercial objectives.
- The structure allows each unit to tailor medical affairs activities to the therapeutic area and market dynamics of its portfolio.
Risks and Operational Implications
- Resource fragmentation may arise as duplicated functions spread across units, potentially leading to inefficiencies in post‑market clinical study oversight.
- Updating and enforcing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) could become more complex, with each unit developing distinct SOPs that may conflict or overlap.
- The dotted‑line reporting arrangement may dilute accountability, making it harder to maintain consistent medical‑affairs quality across the organization.
Outlook
AstraZeneca’s shift mirrors a broader industry trend toward unit‑centric medical affairs models, but the company will need robust governance frameworks to mitigate the risk of siloed operations and SOP drift.-Fineline Info & Tech