Sanofi's Elias Zerhouni says his R&D group is ready to stand alone — but big M&A and partnerships still loom large
Seven years ago, when then Sanofi CEO Chris Viehbacher named former NIH chief Elias Zerhouni as the French pharma giant’s R&D chief, his new boss offered a big shout out for his role as an early adviser in the transformation of Sanofi’s R&D group.
Zerhouni, he said, had been “central in implementing what is now one of the most promising R&D models in healthcare.”
Later, Viehbacher would tell me that he didn’t think any organization as big as Sanofi’s could be truly innovative. And Zerhouni would go on to rely largely on Sanofi’s close partner Regeneron — as well as the Genzyme buyout — to provide the new drugs that the pharma giant desperately needed. (And just look at what Sanofi partner Alnylam accomplished today.) Missteps on the cancer side led to a restructuring in the US while entrenched forces stubbornly resisted Viehbacher’s efforts to pull off a major reorganization in Europe. Then Viehbacher was fired.
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