Klaus Moosmayer, chief ethics, risk and compliance officer at Novartis. Courtesy photo.

Drug company Novartis has named Klaus Moosmayer as chief ethics, risk and compliance officer, effective Dec. 1. Moosmayer will report to the CEO of Novartis in Basel, Switzerland, and serve as a member of the company's executive committee.

His post was added to the committee in April in an effort to help the company restore its reputation, which took a hit over a recently revealed connection with President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer.

Moosmayer's predecessor was Shannon Thyme Klinger, who became group general counsel on June 1. Klinger replaced former GC Felix Ehrat who decided to retire in May amid questions about a $1.2 million consulting contract that he signed, along with the previous CEO, with Michael Cohen.

Ehrat admitted that the contract with Cohen was an “error” in judgment. Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges on Aug. 21, including campaign finance violations tied to Trump.

CEO Vas Narasimhan said in a statement, “As we aspire to reimagine medicine, we must hold ourselves to highest ethical standards and always aim to win and maintain the trust of society and our many stakeholders. Klaus has extensive experience in leading compliance for large global organizations and is internationally recognized in his field.”

Moosmayer has been the chief compliance officer at the German construction giant Siemens since January 2014. He also served as the chief counsel for compliance at Siemens for four years prior to that and played a key role in building Siemens' globally recognized compliance system, according to the Novartis statement.

Moosmayer said in the statement that it was an honor to be chosen. “Society has high expectations of the pharmaceutical industry and rightfully so,” he noted.

His predecessor, Klinger, joined Novartis in 2011 as general counsel for North America for Sandoz Inc., a Novartis subsidiary. She was then named global head of legal and general counsel for Sandoz, before being named CCO at Novartis in 2016.

She joined the parent company while it was dealing with a marketing scandal in South Korea, where a sales team illegally paid doctors to promote the company's drugs. South Korea fined Novartis $50 million.

Before that, Klinger was a litigation partner at Mayer Brown and Alston & Bird, and served as senior vice president and general counsel for Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc. (now part of Abbott Laboratories).

Novartis' latest annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January showed the company still faces compliance risks and legal problems around the globe.

In addition to the usual liability and intellectual property lawsuits experienced by most pharma companies, Novartis said it faces state attorney general and U.S. investigations over its marketing practices and its remuneration to health care providers, including in New York and Massachusetts.

The U.S. Department of Justice also has launched an antitrust investigation into its pricing practices for generics, and the SEC and DOJ are investigating Novartis business practices in Asia and Russia, according to the filing.