The pharmaceutical industry’s effort to find new ways of discovering and developing drugs has been underway for most of this decade, but it remains a struggle.
The latest sign is the replacement of Marc Cluzel as Sanofi-Aventis’s head of research by Eliaz Zerhouni, an adviser to the company’s chief executive, Chris Viehbacher.
The FT reports:
Since his appointment as scientific adviser to Mr Viehbacher in February 2009, the company said Mr Zerhouni had been “instrumental in redesigning the R&D model to foster increased innovation … [to] provide innovative solutions in response to specific, unmet needs of patients.”
It stressed the development - in line with similar measures taken by its peers in recent years - of scientific networks and openness to the external scientific world.
For as long as I have taken an interest in the industry - about eight years - it has been dominated by the same story - the crisis of patent expiry on the blockbuster drugs of the 1990s, and the need to somehow replenish the pipeline.
The change at the top of Sanofi-Aventis follows the resignation of Jeff Kindler as chairman and chief executive of Pfizer, on the grounds that he was exhausted by the job.
Some day, things will improve for big pharma but that day still looks a long way off.
December 14, 2010 7:43pm in Business, Pharmaceuticals | Comment
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Another casualty in the drugs industry’s battle | John Gapper's Business Blog
via blogs.ft.com
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