The University Record, January 16, 1996
Yamada leaves Medical Center to head Healthcare Services for SmithKline
By Margo Schneidman
Medical Center Public Relations
Tadataka Yamada, the John G. Searle Professor of Internal Medicine and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine, announced Jan. 10 that he is leaving the University to become president of Healthcare Services for SmithKline Beecham PLC, the U.S.-British pharmaceuticals group.
Yamada, a gastroenterologist, has been chair of the department since 1990. Prior to that he was chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, a position he had held since joining the University in 1983.
Yamada has established an international reputation for his research on the molecular physiology of peptide hormones of the gut.
As head of Healthcare Services, Yamada will be responsible for disease management, running a newly formed division of SmithKline Beecham that will take the company beyond the development of drugs toward becoming an integrated health care firm.
“This is a unique opportunity for me to have an influence on solutions to the health care problems of people all over the world,” Yamada said. He also said that he leaves behind a strong department.
“The department has a broad base of outstanding talent and excellent leadership at the division-chief level; I fully expect it will continue as one of the two or three leading departments of medicine in the country.”
Under his tenure the department has attained an unprecedented level of research funding and clinical activity, and it is now responsible for one-third of all medical-student teaching at the Medical Center. He will begin his new job in Philadelphia on Feb. 14.
