GSK’s Viehbacher Charged To “Adapt” Sanofi-Aventis To New Realities
Executive Summary
The backdrop for the change in command at Sanofi-Aventis is a string of product development setbacks stretching back to Zimulti (rimonabant) in June 2007, and more recently including the antidepressant amibegron, the gastric cancer agent S-1, the refractory ovarian cancer agent aflibercept and saredutant for major depression
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The backdrop for the change in command at Sanofi-Aventis is a string of product development setbacks stretching back to Zimulti (rimonabant) in June 2007, and more recently including the antidepressant amibegron, the gastric cancer agent S-1, the refractory ovarian cancer agent aflibercept and saredutant for major depression. Announcing the recruitment of GlaxoSmithKline North American Pharmaceuticals President Chris Veihbacher to become CEO (effective Dec. 1), the Sanofi board openly expressed its impatience to turn around the company's approval record. The first charge to Viehbacher is to make sure that R&D "must be better adapted to the new regulatory and economic constraints of the market," the board said in a terse and edgy statement of its expectations. The board's impatience is further demonstrated by the short tenure allowed his predecessor, Gerard Le Fur, a career Sanofi exec who headed the French company for just over 20 months. Le Fur acceded to the top spot at the beginning of 2007 after a career in research and as close protégé to the previous Sanofi head, Francois Dehecq. Viehbacher's 20-year background at GSK is in finance and general management. During the three-way contest to succeed JP Garnier last year at GSK (eventually won by Andrew Witty), Viehbacher was asked to brief the GSK board on the significance of post-marketing surveillance on drug development and marketing. That kind of thinking may be the kind of change Sanofi is seeking to align the company's R&D with successful commercialization. While breaking from the close coterie that has run Sanofi for three decades, the Sanofi board has found a senior manager with experience in France. Viehbacher ran Glaxo Wellcome France in the mid and late 1990s. Viehbacher's GSK background should give him familiarity with the vaccines business that is an important part of his new company's profile. One of Sanofi's recent product successes ( Menactra ) faces a challenge next year from new Novartis projects. - Cole Werble ([email protected]) |