Feb 12 (Reuters) – French drugmaker Sanofi on Thursday appointed Belén Garijo as its new chief executive after choosing not to renew the mandate of Paul Hudson.
The move underscores rising pressure from U.S. vaccine headwinds and a stalled turnaround since he took the reins in 2019.
What do we know about Garijo?
* Garijo was born on July 31, 1960, in Almansa, Spain. She is a specialist in clinical pharmacology and began her career as a practicing physician at La Paz Hospital in Madrid. She is the mother of two daughters and a fan of Real Madrid.
* Garijo, 65, worked for 15 years at Sanofi, where she was vice president of pharmaceutical operations for Europe and Canada and a member of the executive committee, the company said.
* Her work included the integration of Sanofi’s rare diseases Genzyme unit in the United States.
* Garijo had been promoted in 2021 from head of pharma unit at German maker of pharmaceuticals and specialty materials Merck KGaA to CEO of the group, becoming the first woman to take on the sole leadership position at one of the DAX-listed companies.
* As Merck KGaA CEO, she has overseen turbulent markets buffeted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and strategic acquisitions such as SpringWorks Therapeutics and portfolio divestitures. She was one of the top earners among the executives in the blue chip index in the DAX.
* Her contract with Merck is ending as planned. Her track record in the company’s pharmaceuticals business is mixed. The German company itself suffered numerous setbacks in the development of new drugs during her tenure.
* Garijo was also a board member of French cosmetics giant L’Oreal between 2014 and 2024, and she currently sits on the board of Spanish lender BBVA
“She took a German company that gets stuck in rules and hierarchy and that relied on external consultants to make decisions to convert to an organization that challenged executives to have to guts to stand up for their decisions,” said Roel Bulthuis, managing partner at Syncona Limited, a London-listed life sciences investment company. “I’m a big fan”.
* Garijo’s experience is broad, yet not especially associated with R&D productivity improvements at large pharma, Berenberg analyst Luisa Hector said.
* “It is fair to say that Belen would not have been on many shortlists as potential successor given at Merck KGaA she arguably never reached the profile of prior executives there”, Jefferies said in a note to clients.
* Shares in Sanofi were down 4.7% by around 09:00 GMT on Thursday
(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi in Gdansk, Bhanvi Satija and Maggie Fick in London and Patricia Weiss; Editing by Matt Scuffham)
