One of Olivier Brandicourt’s first jobs as Sanofi’s newly appointed chief executive officer will be getting the company’s US business running smoothly as the drugmaker launches new products, chairman Serge Weinberg said in an interview with Bloomberg.
The French drugmaker on Thursday appointed Brandicourt, Bayer AG’s healthcare head, as CEO, turning to a citizen of its home country after firing Canadian-German national Chris Viehbacher in October. Brandicourt will take his new post on April 2, Paris-based Sanofi said in a statement.
Brandicourt is “a very good fit” for Sanofi and “has the experience of the portfolio businesses we have,” Weinberg said by telephone. “A lot will be about launches, not only in 2015,” and the US “is very high on the priority list,” Weinberg said.
Brandicourt, a doctor trained in Paris, has been CEO of the healthcare unit at Leverkusen, Germany-based Bayer since 2013 after rising through the ranks at Pfizer Inc to lead the US company’s emerging-markets and established-products units.
Earlier in his career, he was a malaria researcher in Paris and spent two years working as a doctor in the Republic of the Congo.
The new CEO will need to rebuild investor confidence after the abrupt ouster of Viehbacher, who was removed a month after Sanofi stock reached a record high. Brandicourt, 59, is taking the helm at a company that has predicted tepid sales growth at its key diabetes division through 2018 following a price war in the US with Novo Nordisk A/S that caused a loss of market share for its best-selling drug, Lantus.
Even as Sanofi’s key diabetes business is facing difficulty, the company said in November that by 2020 it plans to introduce 18 new products that could garner cumulative sales of 30 billion euros (US$34 billion) over the first five years. The planned introductions include Toujeo, a successor to Lantus; a cholesterol-lowering drug called Praluent; and the world’s first vaccine against dengue fever.
The US made up 34 percent of Sanofi’s US$44.9 billion in sales last year, and is where most of Sanofi’s new products will be introduced first, Weinberg said during the interview.
“The US is important to us,” he said.
Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers praised Brandicourt for his “commitment and his contributions” to the German drugmaker.
Bayer chief strategy and portfolio officer Werner Baumann will succeed Brandicourt at the healthcare unit, the company said.
Brandicourt will be based in Paris, Weinberg said.
While Sanofi is in no need of acquisitions today and will remain “very disciplined” on dealmaking, the company could benefit by strengthening some of its businesses, Weinberg said.
“We have to be ready to seize opportunities,” he said. “I would like us to be a little bit more proactive than what we’ve been” since 2011.
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