By Billy Gray
Sanofi shares fell after the company said Belen Garijo, the chief executive of Germany's Merck KGaA, would succeed Paul Hudson as CEO after its board decided not to renew his mandate.
The change at the helm of the French drugmaker follows a string of clinical setbacks last year that put its shares under pressure and left investors and analysts wondering whether Sanofi would be able to replace sales from blockbuster Dupixent--an anti-inflammatory drug jointly developed with Regeneron--once the medicine goes off patent.
Shares in Sanofi were down around 6% in European midday trading on Thursday, taking their losses over the past year to more than a quarter.
The company said the decision to replace Hudson as CEO came in a board meeting on Feb. 11. Garijo will step into the top role at the end of the group's annual general meeting on April 29, while Hudson is set to leave on Feb. 17, it added.
With the appointment, Garijo will return to Sanofi, where she worked for 15 years before moving to Merck KGaA in 2011. She spent another 15 years at the German company in several positions, including as CEO since 2021.
Merck KGaA said last year that Garijo would leave in April of this year and be replaced as CEO by Kai Beckmann.
Hudson became CEO of Sanofi in September 2019, months before the Covid-19 pandemic kicked off a race to develop vaccines in which peers were faster than the French company in launching their shots. But the company's top and bottom lines continued to grow, benefiting from fast-growing sales of Dupixent, which now accounts for more than a third of the group's revenue.
During his tenure, Hudson--who previously led Novartis's pharma division and had worked at AstraZeneca and Schering-Plough before--sought to sharpen Sanofi's focus on innovative medicines and expanded in areas like rare diseases while offloading businesses such as its consumer-healthcare arm and its drug-ingredients unit.
A potential leadership change at Sanofi had been debated for a while after its research-and-development strategy hit potholes, analysts at Jefferies wrote in a note to clients.
"Belen Garijo will bring an increased rigor to the implementation of Sanofi's strategy and accelerate the preparation of the group's future," the company said.
Olivier Charmeil, Sanofi's executive vice president, general medicines, will serve as interim CEO during the leadership transition, the company said.
Write to Billy Gray at william.gray@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
02-12-26 0740ET
