BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (Nasdaq: VRTX) today announced that Diana McKenzie has been appointed to its board of directors as an independent director. Ms. McKenzie is a senior technology leader and innovator with deep experience across pharma, biotechnology and technology. She most recently served as Chief Information Officer of Workday, Inc., a cloud-based financial and human capital management software company. Prior to Workday, McKenzie served as SVP and Chief Information Officer at Amgen, a leading biotechnology company.

“We are thrilled to have Diana join the Vertex Board. Her corporate leadership experience, industry knowledge and passion for leveraging technology to drive innovation give her a unique perspective on our industry and a broad and robust skillset that will make her a valuable contributor to our board of directors,” said Jeffrey Leiden, M.D., Ph.D., Executive Chairman of Vertex.

“It’s an honor to join Vertex, a company with an industry-leading track record of discovering, developing and commercializing innovative medicines to treat serious diseases,” said Diana McKenzie. “I look forward to working with my fellow directors to support Vertex’s mission of creating more transformative medicines for people with serious diseases.”

Prior to Amgen, Ms. McKenzie spent 17 years at Eli Lilly and Company in various leadership roles, focused on drug development, reducing time to market and improving technology and security standards. She is a current member on the board of directors of MetLife, Inc. and Change Healthcare, and is a Special Advisor to Brighton Park Capital. Ms. McKenzie holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Purdue University and completed the Information Technology Management Program at University of California, Los Angeles.

The addition of Ms. McKenzie brings Vertex’s board of directors to 10 members, 8 of whom are independent and 40% of whom are women.

About Vertex

Vertex is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation to create transformative medicines for people with serious diseases. The company has multiple approved medicines that treat the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis (CF) — a rare, life-threatening genetic disease — and has several ongoing clinical and research programs in CF. Beyond CF, Vertex has a robust pipeline of investigational small molecule medicines in other serious diseases where it has deep insight into causal human biology, including pain, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency and APOL1-mediated kidney diseases. In addition, Vertex has a rapidly expanding pipeline of genetic and cell therapies for diseases such as sickle cell disease, beta thalassemia, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and type 1 diabetes mellitus.