Vasant "Vas" Narasimhan (born August 26, 1976) is an American physician and the chief executive officer of Novartis.

[7] His parents came to the US from India in the 1960’s and early 1970’s and started the Shri Venkateshwara temple in Penn Hills, Pittsburgh which he has stated was influential in his upbringing.

Narasimhan's mother was a nuclear engineer for Public Service Electric and Gas Company and his father was an executive at Hoeganaes Corporation.

[11][12][13][14][15][8][9] After his first year of medical school, Vas went to Kolkata, India to work with street children and child laborers for three months.

[22][23] As part of his strategy, Narasimhan has divested the joint consumer healthcare venture to GSK,[24] the spin-off of Alcon,[25] and the exit of a stake in Roche[26][20] as well as pushed for the acquisition of Advanced Accelerator Applications, Endocyte, AveXis, and The Medicines Company.

[32][33][34] As part of a "more comprehensive commitment to ethics”, Narasimhan has moved to settle long standing bribery and anti-trust cases facing Novartis in the US, China, Vietnam and Greece.