The Research & Development Committee assists the Board of Directors with: the research and development strategy; the pipeline; and the R&D organisation.
The Research & Development Committee has four members elected by the Board of Directors from among its members. One member is designated as chair and one member is an employee-elected Board member.
In March 2021, the Board of Directors elected the following members to the Research & Development Committee:
Out of the four members of the Research & Development Committee, two members qualify as independent as defined in the Danish Corporate Governance Recommendations, including the chair, while Kasim Kutay and Thomas Rantzau qualify as non-independent given that Kasim Kutay is an executive of the main shareholder Novo Holdings A/S and Thomas Rantzau is an employee-elected Board member. According to the Danish Corporate Governance Recommendations a majority of the members of a board committee should qualify as independent. Hence, the composition of the Research & Development Committee does not adhere to the Danish Corporate Governance Recommendations. This is due to the fact that the Board of Directors finds that the composition of the Research & Development Committee allows for a representative of the main shareholder as well as an employee-elected Board member, both qualifying as non-independent, being on the Research & Development Committee while maintaining an operational structure of the Research & Development Committee with relative few members.
The Research & Development Committee conducted five meetings in 2020. All Research & Development Committee members attended all committee meetings within the member’s term in 2020.