Nicholas Franco — Chief Business Development Officer and Executive Vice President at Actelion

Mr. Nicholas Franco has been the Chief Business Development Officer and Executive Vice President of Actelion Ltd since June 7, 2011. Mr. Franco has over 20 years of leadership and experience in research, marketing, sales and business development across several therapeutic areas and geographies. He served as Senior Vice President of International Commercial Operations of Axcan Pharma Inc., since July 2007. He served as Senior Vice President of International Commercial Operations at Aptalis Pharma Inc. from July 2007 to January 2011 and Aptalis Pharma Canada Inc. since July 2007. Prior to joining Axcan, Mr. Franco served as Head of Market Access Region Europe for Novartis Pharma AG in Basel, Switzerland, a company where he has held various management positions since 1991. He served as Head of Ophthalmics at Novartis Ag since September 2005. Previous positions include President of Novartis Ophthalmics, Global Head, Business Development and Licensing and Global Brand Director for gastrointestinal products. During his tenure with Novartis, Mr. Franco successfully led cross-functional teams and business units that directly controlled local markets, as well as large business franchises and business units in international settings. He also established Novartis' Global Alliance Management function and led the Primary Care Global Negotiations team in completing over a dozen in-licensing deals for development compounds. Mr. Franco graduated from McGill University (Canada) where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and a Masters in Business Administration, Strategic Planning and Marketing.