GlaxoSmithKline PLC on Wednesday announced a global reorganization designed to strengthen the British drug developer?? position in emerging markets and consolidate its North American operations.
Led by incoming chief executive Andrew Witty, who replaces retiring CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier on May 22, a new management team will form an ??merging markets??unit focused on building business in China, Russia, Brazil, India and the Middle East. Leading the division will be Abbas Hussain, who joins Glaxo on June 2 from rival Eli Lilly & Co.
Asia-Pacific unit
The company will also create an Asia-Pacific unit to handle the Japanese and Australian markets, which will be led by Marc Dunoyer, former president of the company?? Japan pharmaceuticals unit.
Glaxo?? North American division will combine US, Canadian and Puerto Rican operations and be headed by US unit president Chris Viehbacher. The company also named former Northern European operations leader David Redfern to the newly created post of chief strategy officer.
??aking the changes required to develop our business for the next decade requires a rigorous and disciplined focus on corporate strategy,??Witty said in a statement.
?? key element of this new team?? remit will be to proactively seek new business opportunities to expand our global reach and drive sales growth,??he said.
Emerging markets in the Middle East, China, Russia and India contribute nearly 25 percent of today?? pharmaceutical market growth, Witty said, and that rate is likely to accelerate in the future.
Growth rates in once-neglected markets could someday triple that of Western nations, he said.
The company?? current structure focuses on key regions and its international unit deals with countries outside of that focus.
Though the new emerging markets unit is not centralized, the regions it contains represent similar states of development in terms of economy, healthcare industry and rapid growth rate, Glaxo said.
dynamic
??t is essential that we have an operating structure that is dynamic and responsive to the opportunities in these markets,??Witty said.
GlaxoSmithKline and its big pharmaceutical peers have struggled to drive revenue higher in US and European markets amid growing generic and branded drug competition and the slowing sales of blockbuster drugs that have saturated the markets.
Glaxo recently reported a 14 percent drop in first-quarter profit, mainly the result of generic competition to its antidepressant and heart medications. Meanwhile, sales of the diabetes drug Avandia have fallen owing to stricter safety warnings.
Witty said regulatory pressures were a key challenge facing the industry.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
RSS