Tadataka Yamada, M.D.
Tadataka (Tachi) Yamada, M.D., is Executive Vice-President, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer and a Board Member of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. He has responsibility for all of Takeda’s research and development activities and chairs the Corporate Management Operating Committee which oversees all investments in research and development, business development and in-licensing. He was formerly President of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Health Program. In this capacity he oversaw grants totaling over $9 billion in programs directed at applying technologies to address major health challenges of the developing world including TB, HIV, malaria and other infectious diseases, malnutrition and maternal and child health. Before joining the Gates Foundation Dr. Yamada was Chairman, Research and Development and a Member of the Board of Directors of GlaxoSmithKline.
Dr. Yamada was born in Japan, and completed his education in the United States. He graduated from Stanford University with a BA in history and obtained his M.D. from New York University School of Medicine. After completing his internal medicine training at the Medical College of Virginia he became an investigator in the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, trained in gastroenterology at the UCLA School of Medicine and assumed his first faculty position there. He later moved to the University of Michigan where he ultimately became Chairman, Department of Internal Medicine and Physician-in-Chief of the University of Michigan Medical Center before joining GlaxoSmithKline.
A scientist and scholar in gastroenterology, Dr. Yamada is the author of more than 150 original manuscripts on the subject and is the editor of The Textbook of Gastroenterology. The studies undertaken by Dr. Yamada and his collaborators led to basic discoveries in the post-translational processing and biological activation of peptide hormones, the structure and function of receptors for hormones regulating gastric acid secretion, and the regulation of genes involved in the acid secretory process.
In recognition of his contributions to medicine and science he has been elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (US), the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK) and the National Academy of Medicine (Mexico) and he has received an honorary appointment as Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). He has been conferred the degree of D.Sci. honoris causa, from the University of East Anglia (UK), the University of Warwick (UK) and Washington College. He has also been the recipient of numerous awards including the Distinguished Achievement Award in Gastrointestinal Physiology from the American Physiological Society, the Friedenwald Medal from the American Gastroenterological Association, the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award from the University of Michigan and the Distinguished Medical Scientist Award from the Medical College of Virginia. Dr. Yamada is a Fellow of the Imperial College of Medicine, a Master of the American College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, a Past-President of the Association of American Physicians and a Past-President of the American Gastroenterological Association. He has also been a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
