Sanofi's New CEO Faces Challenges in Drug Development and Leadership

Challenges Facing Sanofi's New CEO

By Bhanvi Satija and Maggie Fick

LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Sanofi's incoming CEO, 65-year-old Belén Garijo, faces a major task to win over investors, accelerate the French company's stalled drug development pipeline and navigate vaccine scepticism in the United States under President Donald Trump.

Investors, analysts and other people close to Garijo, who has headed Germany's Merck KGaA since 2021, told Reuters she was bold, detail-focused and got things done, but also that she had a mixed record on R&D and the share price had dropped during her tenure.

Replacing Dupixent: A Key Strategic Challenge

Sanofi's stock, down 25% in the last year, fell 3.5% on Thursday after it said CEO Paul Hudson, 58, whose turnaround drive was stymied by a lack of new blockbuster drugs, would step down this month to be replaced by Garijo in April.

"The CEO change at Sanofi is a sign that R&D transformation has failed or is happening too slowly," said Markus Manns, portfolio manager at Sanofi investor Union Investment. "Belen's priority at Sanofi will be to increase R&D productivity."

Manns lauded Spaniard Garijo's handling of a complex company - Merck has units from health to technology - and a pricing deal sealed with U.S. President Donald Trump last year, but said she needed to step up after several R&D failures at Merck.

"She needs to improve her R&D track record."

REPLACING ASTHMA BLOCKBUSTER DUPIXENT IS A MAJOR CHALLENGE

Developing new drugs has proved to be Sanofi's biggest issue. Dupixent accounts for over 30% of the company's revenues and it has yet to find a drug to take over once patents begin expiring early in the 2030s, which has weighed on Sanofi's share price.

"Replacing Dupixent is the key strategic challenge for Sanofi," said Nicolas Dumas, a partner at consultancy firm Roland Berger and a Sanofi employee until 2018.

Garijo's Background and Experience

Vaccines, which make up close to a fifth of revenues, are another major issue as sales have dipped in recent years. Hudson had flagged weakness in the segment linked to a more hostile attitude towards vaccines from the U.S. health administration.

Sanofi said Garijo, who worked at the French company for years until 2011, would bring "increased rigour to the implementation of" the company's strategy. Garijo did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

SHE WILL BECOME SANOFI'S FIRST FEMALE CEO

Garijo will be Sanofi's first female CEO - and the only woman CEO at a large-cap global drugmaker after GSK's Emma Walmsley stepped down this year. She was the first woman to head a German DAX-listed company when she took on the top role at Merck KGaA.

As head of Merck's pharma business, Garijo steered the group's supply chain through the COVID-19 pandemic. She oversaw deals including the group's $3.9 billion purchase of SpringWorks Therapeutics last year.

However, Merck KGaA suffered setbacks in drug development during her tenure and only three new drugs made it to the market. 

One investor who worked with Garijo, asking not to be named, said the "visible stuff" - R&D and business development - had not gone well, while adding she had improved the structure of Merck internally and protected the company's margins.

Roel Bulthuis, managing partner at Syncona Limited, a London-based life sciences investment firm, said that Garijo had turned a company "stuck in rules and hierarchy" into a much more bold and effective entity.

"She... challenged executives to have guts to stand up for their decisions and actually get shit done," said Bulthuis, who previously ran M-Ventures, the corporate venture fund of Merck KGaA, during part of Garijo's tenure.

A second investor who worked with Garijo said she was full of energy, dynamic and "on top of things" and also had deep knowledge of Sanofi. "She knows the house, don't underestimate the importance of that," said the person, who also asked not to be named.

Market Reactions and Future Speculations

CLINICAL BACKGROUND, BUT HOW LONG WILL SHE STAY?

A clinical pharmacology specialist, Garijo began her career as a physician at La Paz Hospital in Madrid and is known for her operational execution and attention to detail.

Garijo has "more operations experience than a science background, so will be interesting to see how she can reinvigorate the R&D department in Sanofi," said Claus Henrik Johansen, CEO of Global Health Invest, a Danish healthcare investment fund that holds Sanofi shares.

Some analysts and investors said Garijo had not been on many people's radar, which caught the market slightly by surprise - and they speculated how long she would stay in her new job.

"I think she's a transition CEO. What she's good at, she's someone who can put the organisation under pressure," consultant Dumas said. "She's not there to stay forever." 

(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Maggie Fick in London, Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Barbara Lewis)