Sanofi is replacing Paul Hudson as CEO, the company announced Thursday, spurning his attempts to bolster the company’s pipeline as it has faced recent clinical setbacks.
The company’s board has tapped Belén Garijo, the CEO of Merck KGaA, to be its next chief executive. She starts April 29 and will be the first woman to lead the French pharma.
Hudson, who took the reins at Sanofi in 2019, had sought to invest more in the company’s research programs as it aims to find a successor for its mega-blockbuster Dupixent, an immunology therapy that it markets with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. The approach has sometimes worried investors, but Hudson has argued that doubling down on the company’s pipeline would turn it into a research powerhouse with a focus on immunology in the years ahead, with Dupixent’s patent protection expected to end in the early 2030s.
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