Paul Hud­son's rare dis­ease piv­ot takes a small step for­ward, as Nie­mann-Pick drug wins Japan ap­proval

As Sanofi CEO, Paul Hud­son has made no se­cret of his de­sire to de­vel­op new break­through drugs and broad­en his com­pa­ny’s of­fer­ings. That ef­fort inched for­ward Mon­day with Sanofi pick­ing up a new rare dis­ease drug ap­proval in Japan.

The big French phar­ma won a green light for its acid sphin­gomyeli­nase de­fi­cien­cy drug olipu­dase al­fa, which will be brand­ed as Xen­pozyme. It’s the ther­a­py’s first ap­proval any­where in the world and the first drug OK’ed to treat cer­tain types of the dis­ease, Sanofi said.

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