Dr. Chitkala Kalidas

Chitkala Kalidas, PhD, is Senior Vice President and Global Head of Environment, Social & Governance (ESG) at Bayer. In this role, Dr. Kalidas is responsible for advancing Bayer’s commitment to ESG & Sustainability, providing ESG governance & reporting and ensuring occupational health & safety at Bayer.  

Prior to this role, Dr. Kalidas was the Global Head of Oncology Regulatory Affairs and Oncology Sustainability at Bayer. In this role, Dr. Kalidas and her team of Regulatory Professionals were responsible for developing global regulatory strategies for cancer drug development programs in all stages of development and for the global registration of drugs as well as in vitro diagnostics. Dr. Kalidas has also led the Oncology Sustainability Initiative at Bayer. This initiative, which is focused on Global Health Equity in underserved communities around the globe, reflects Bayer’s commitment to remedy disparities in access to quality cancer care and bring to life Bayer’s vision of Health for All. Through public-private partnerships in India, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria and Ukraine, Dr. Kalidas and her team have led capacity building projects to connect primary and secondary health care centers in rural/underserved communities to tertiary/specialized centers. The overarching goal of these activities is to create more equitable ecosystems of cancer care by bringing together relevant stakeholders and to improve patient outcomes. Bayer’s Oncology Sustainability Initiative has been recognized by the US White House Cancer Moonshot team, the Ministry of Health and Population in Egypt and by the Ghana Health Services.  

Dr. Kalidas is active in the area of multi-stakeholder collaboration to address access gaps in health care. She has more than 23 years of experience in drug development. Prior to joining Bayer, Dr. Kalidas was at Merck & Co. Inc. where she worked on drug development programs across multiple therapeutic areas and geographic regions. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, she was a Management Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. Dr. Kalidas has a PhD in Microbiology from Cornell University.