Photo credit: bogdanhoda/Shutterstock.com

Vanda Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded maker of drugs to treat Non-24-Hour Sleep Wake Disorder and schizophrenia, has hired a health care in-house veteran as its new general counsel.

In addition to serving as GC, Timothy Williams also will be Vanda's senior vice president and secretary, the Washington, D.C.-based biopharmaceutical company announced Monday. He most recently was executive VP, GC, chief compliance officer and corporate secretary at AgNovos Healthcare, a medical device company focused on bone health.

It was not clear whether Williams, who could not immediately be reached for comment, is Vanda's first-ever GC.

According to news reports, Vanda's most important drug is Hetlioz, which treats so-called “Non-24,” a circadian rhythm disorder that affects about 80,000 Americans. Like Hetlioz, Vanda's schizophrenia drug Fanapt also has posted sales growth over the past year, the reports say.

Earlier this year, the company prevailed in an action against Roxane Laboratories Inc. (now Hikma Labs Inc.), which had sought to invalidate a Vanda patent on Fanapt.

Before joining AgNovos in 2013, Williams was senior legal counsel and assistant secretary at global medical technology company Stryker for about four years, according to his LinkedIn profile. In that role he led the legal department's global mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and securities groups.

Williams began his legal career in the Chicago office of Bryan Cave and later worked at Mayer Brown. He earned his degree from the University of Michigan Law School.