Early career After his first year of medical school, Vas went to
Kolkata, India to work with street children and child laborers for three months. He later worked on malaria and HIV/AIDS in Tanzania and he did his thesis on
multidrug resistant tuberculosis in Peru. From 2014 to 2016, he was the Global Head of Development for Novartis Pharmaceuticals. From 2016 to 2018, he held the role of Global Head of Drug Development and
Chief Medical Officer within the company. He publicly stated his desire to focus Novartis from a diversified company to a pure-play medicines company. He also advocated for development of key technologies and capabilities in advanced therapy platforms, such as
cell therapy and
gene therapy,
RNA therapeutics, and
radioligand therapy. As part of his strategy, Narasimhan has divested the joint consumer healthcare venture to
GSK, the spin-off of
Alcon, and the exit of a stake in
Roche In February 2018, three months after becoming CEO, Narasimhan apologized to Novartis employees after it was revealed that Novartis had signed a $1.2 million year-long contract with President Donald Trump's personal attorney
Michael Cohen's consulting firm in February 2017. In 2019, in response to an FDA investigation about manipulated data involving
Zolgensma, Narasimhan defended the company's decision to delay informing the FDA and also announced the company was forcing out scientists who were involved in the manipulated data. Brian Kaspar maintained his innocence and was later hired by other gene therapy companies. As part of a "more comprehensive commitment to ethics”, Narasimhan has moved to settle long standing bribery and anti-trust cases facing Novartis in the US, China, Vietnam and Greece. == Memberships ==