Taiwan-headquartered PharmaEssentia has tapped Joseph Horvat as its new global chief commercial officer as it looks to boost its one approved drug and move more through its pipeline and into the market.

Horvat comes to the Taiwan-U.S. biopharma from his role as general manager at MorphoSys US, while also serving stints at Oncopeptides, EMD Serono, and Bristol Myers Squibb, among others.

While taking on a global role, PharmaEssentia said in its release that Horvat will focus heavily on the company’s U.S. operations. This comes several years into the launch of its first approved drug Besremi.

The drug, which was given the FDA green light back in late 2021, is approved for adults with polycythemia vera, which causes a thickening of the blood and affects roughly 6,200 people each year in the United States.

Besremi was approved as a first-line therapy, whereas Incyte’s rival med Jakafi is approved as a second-line treatment. The drug will initially be a firm focus for Horvat as the company looks to up its sales and potentially launch new labels for the med in the near future.

Its pipeline includes mid-to-late trials of Besremi in blood cancers and blood diseases, as well as experimental meds in early stage and preclinical tests across a variety of disorders, including solid tumors and neutropenia.

“With nearly three decades of involvement in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, Joe has compiled a successful track record in business development support and commercialization across all pipeline and product life cycle stages, including early development, pre-launch, launch and in-line,” said Ko-Chung Lin, Ph.D., PharmaEssentia founder and CEO.

“His leadership will be critical in aligning commercial strategies and ensuring the highest level of performance across the company’s global operations … and he will focus heavily on supporting PharmaEssentia USA Corporation, which will receive the majority of resources and funding for these initiatives.”