Sanofi is planning to restructure into five global business units: General Medicines & Emerging Markets, Specialty Care, Diabetes & Cardiovascular, Sanofi Pasteur and Merial to drive growth.
The new structure will be implemented in January 2016.
The French drugmaker says it is poised to achieve significant growth and will potentially launch up to six new medicines in 2015 and approximately one new medicine every six months between 2016 and 2018.
Sanofi's Chief Executive Olivier Brandicourt says the new organisation 'simplifies and focuses Sanofi to optimise growth' and is a 'necessary step for ensuring that Sanofi's new medicines and vaccines continue to build on our heritage of providing innovative healthcare therapies'.
The General Medicines & Emerging Markets Global Business Unit will be led by Peter Guenter and will consist of Sanofi's Established Products, Generics, Consumer Healthcare, and all pharmaceutical businesses in Emerging Markets.
The Speciality Care Global Business Unit, to be called Sanofi Genzyme, will be led by David Meeker and will consist of Sanofi's medicines in Rare Diseases, Multiple Sclerosis, Oncology and immunology, including the two, investigational biologics, sarilumab and dupilumab.
The Diabetes & Cardiovascular Global Business Unit will be led by Pascale Witz and will consist of Sanofi's Diabetes Care medicines as well as Cardiovascular, which includes Praluent (alirocumab), which is currently under review by the US FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Sanofi Pasteur and Merial are both Global Business Units and will continue to manage their current portfolios of vaccines and animal health products. Olivier Charmeil will continue to lead Sanofi Pasteur, while Carsten Hellmann will continue to lead Merial.
The company says all functions will be globalised in a similar way to Research and Development and Industrial Affairs so that the Business Units are better served.
The composition of the Executive Committee remains unchanged and the new leadership roles will be effective from 1 January 2016.
