Harvard hires Lilly executive to oversee research

At a juncture when medical schools and hospitals across the country are developing policies to minimize the potential influence of the drug industry on medicine and medical education, Harvard Medical School has appointed a new research chief who spent the last 10 years at a pharmaceutical company. A critic of drug company ties to medicine called the move "puzzling," but a Harvard dean said skills from both academia and industry are needed.

Dr. William W. Chin will become executive dean for research, the medical school said today. In the newly created position, he will have oversight of biomedical research at the school and work with Harvard-affiliated hospitals as well as Harvard University on strategic scientific planning.

Chin will come to Harvard on May 1 from Eli Lilly and Co., where he is senior vice president for discovery research and clinical investigation. He joined Lilly in 1999 after 25 years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. A molecular endocrinologist, he graduated from Harvard Medical School and trained at Beth Israel Hospital and  Massachusetts General Hospital.

"There are very few people capable of rising to such a challenge," Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of Harvard Medical School, wrote in a letter to the Harvard community released with the announcement.

While Chin is a highly qualified scientist,  his appointment is "puzzling," said Dr. Arnold S. Relman. He is professor emeritus of medicine and of social medicine at Harvard and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Does this appointment signify that Harvard Medical School intends to even further strengthen its research ties to the pharmaceutical industry?" Relman said in an interview. "If so, I think many people will worry that the separate roles for academic medicine and drug companies are becoming more confused, leading to more conflicts of interest."

Harvard is developing a new policy to guide interactions between researchers and the drug industry.

Dr. Lee Nadler, dean of clinical and translational research at the medical school,  called Chin, whom he met in 1969 when he was a first-year medical student, "except for Jeff Flier, the most important recruit to Harvard Medical School"  because he will bring skills from the two worlds of academic medicine and industry.

"As opposed to what Dr. Relman says, he learned what it takes to move basic science to impact patients," Nadler said in an interview. "We hired Bill to knock down those blocks. Bill Chin only cares about our patients and their families. It's not about the drug companies, it's about people with illness."