NORTHBROOK, Ill., March 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Astellas today announced various leadership changes that will take effect April 1, 2016.

• Martin Golden has been appointed to senior vice president and head of Marketing Strategy, a global role responsible for developing and implementing marketing strategy for both strategic in-line products and pipeline.
• Frank Hudson has been promoted to senior vice president and head of Budget & Control, Medical & Development.
• Walt Johnston, Mark Reisenauer and Kenton Stewart have been promoted to senior vice presidents, with responsibility for commercial activities in the United States in the areas of urology and hospital, oncology, and hospital and health systems, respectively. They will report to James Robinson, president, Americas Operations, and serve as members of the Astellas Americas Management Committee.

Golden served as vice president, Government Affairs for Astellas US since 2014. He has also held roles at Astellas in Sales, New Product Planning and Strategy.  Prior to joining Astellas, Golden held leadership roles at Novartis, Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb.  Golden will report to Astellas President and Chief Executive Officer Yoshihiko Hatanaka and be based at Astellas Headquarters for the Americas in Northbrook.

Hudson previously served as vice president and head of Budget & Control, Medical & Development.  Prior to Astellas, Hudson held financial leadership positions at Agensys, MannKind Corporation and GlaxoSmithKline.  He will continue to report to Astellas Chief Medical Officer Sef Kurstjens and be based in Northbrook.

Johnston will lead Sales and Marketing for urology and hospital markets. In addition, he will have responsibility for commercial operations. Johnston has been with Astellas since 2008, most recently serving as vice president of US Marketing and Strategic New Product Planning, with responsibility for urology, immunology, cardiovascular and anti-infective markets. Prior to joining Astellas, Johnston served in a variety of global and domestic roles at Pfizer.

Reisenauer will continue to oversee Sales and Marketing for oncology, with responsibility for all commercial activities supporting marketed products, Astellas' co-promotion partners and commercial planning for early stage oncology development compounds.  Before joining Astellas in 2011, Reisenauer served in a variety of global and domestic oncology sales and marketing roles at Abbott, Pharmacia, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca and Mircromet Inc (now part of Amgen).

Since joining Astellas in 2006, Stewart served in various leadership roles in the Commercial organization, and, most recently, was responsible for US health systems. He will continue to lead health systems in his new role and will oversee payer and key account management, contracts and pricing, reimbursement strategy, health systems marketing, trade channel account management and operations. Prior to joining Astellas, Stewart served at TAP Pharmaceuticals and Abbott.

About Astellas
Astellas is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the health of people around the world through the provision of innovative and reliable pharmaceutical products. For more information on Astellas, please visit our website at www.astellas.us . You can also follow us on Twitter at @AstellasUS, Facebook at www.facebook.com/AstellasUS or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/astellas-pharma.

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SOURCE Astellas