Wellcome Leap Appoints John Young and Thomas Glanzmann to Board of Directors

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wellcome Leap (Leap), a U.S. nonprofit founded by the Wellcome Trust to accelerate breakthroughs in human health, today announced that John Young and Thomas Glanzmann have joined its Board of Directors.

“Throughout my career, I have seen what becomes possible when exceptional science is matched with urgency, clear goals, and the ability to operate at scale,” said John Young. “Wellcome Leap brings those elements together in a unique way – assembling multidisciplinary, global teams around ambitious, measurable goals and giving them the resources to execute quickly. That combination is what turns scientific possibility into advances that change human health.”

John brings more than three decades of global leadership in the biopharmaceutical industry. During a 35-year career at Pfizer, he held senior leadership roles spanning commercial operations, strategy, and business development, and served as a member of Pfizer’s Executive Leadership Team from 2012 until his retirement in 2022. His roles included Global President for Primary Care and the Pfizer Essential Health business unit, and, beginning in 2019, Chief Business Officer. In 2020, he also chaired Pfizer’s COVID SWAT Team.

John began his career with Pfizer as a trainee in his native Scotland in 1987, progressing through sales, marketing, and general management roles before becoming Regional President for Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in 2009. His experience leading businesses across global markets and through periods of significant change gives him deep insight into how scientific innovation can be developed, scaled, and translated into impact.

“Healthcare breakthroughs rarely emerge from a single discipline, organization, or way of thinking,” said Thomas Glanzmann. “They require bold ideas, diverse expertise, collective problem-solving, and a willingness to take on challenges where the path forward is not obvious. Leap has built a model around exactly that premise – connecting experts across its global research network to pursue new approaches to difficult problems and improve lives around the world.”

Thomas has held executive, investment, and board roles across medical technologies, diagnostics, biotechnology, and biopharmaceuticals. He is a Partner and venture capital investor with Medtech Ventures Partners, which he co-founded in 2017, and has extensive experience building and growing global healthcare businesses, leading turnarounds, and guiding organizations through complex strategic and operational challenges.

Thomas most recently served in a series of senior leadership roles at Grifols S.A., including Chief Executive Officer, Executive Chairman, and Non-Executive Chairman, after nearly two decades on the company’s Board. Earlier in his career, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Gambro AB and Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of HemoCue AB. He also spent more than 15 years at Baxter International Inc., where his roles included President of Baxter Bioscience and senior leadership positions across the company’s global biotechnology businesses. He previously served as a Senior Advisor to the Executive Chairman and a Managing Director of the World Economic Forum.

“John and Thomas have each spent their careers navigating the complexity of global healthcare – across science, business, investment, and partnerships,” said Richard Gillingwater, Chairman of the Wellcome Leap Board of Directors. “They have led organizations through significant growth and know what it takes to turn scientific advances into real-world impact. Their insight and perspective will be valuable as Leap continues to drive breakthroughs in human health.”

John currently serves on the boards of Novartis AG and Johnson Controls International and previously served on the UK Government’s Life Sciences Council and the boards of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). He holds a BSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Glasgow and an MBA from Strathclyde Graduate Business School.

Thomas currently serves on the boards of Alcon and Swiss Steel. He holds a BS in Political Science from Dartmouth College, an MBA from IMD Business School, and a Board of Directors Certification from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

About Wellcome Leap
Wellcome Leap is a billion-dollar breakthrough engine for human health – at global scale. Founded by the Wellcome Trust in 2020 as a U.S. nonprofit, Wellcome Leap builds and executes bold, unconventional programs with the urgency required to deliver breakthroughs in years, not decades. Operating at the intersection of life sciences and engineering, Leap programs require best-in-class, multidisciplinary, global teams assembled from universities, companies, and nonprofits working together to solve problems that they cannot solve alone. For more information, read how Wellcome Leap is Changing the Business of Breakthroughs and visit www.wellcomeleap.org.

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