New CEO takes over at Sanofi
01 Dec 2008
Sanofi-aventis has announced that its new chief executive officer has taken up his position today.
Chris Viehbacher, formerly president of pharmaceutical operations in North America for GlaxoSmithKline, is a graduate in Commerce from Queens University in Ontario and is also a certified public accountant.
The 48-year-old executive began his career at accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers before moving into the Wellcome group.
Mr Viehbacher, who holds both Canadian and German citizenship, is a board member of PhRMA in the US.
Sanofi-aventis released its third-quarter results at the end of October, claiming growth ahead of that seen in the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.
The firm posted net sales of just over 6.85 billion euros (£5.74 billion) during the three-month period.
Sanofi said it represented an increase of 5.5 per cent on a comparable basis but a fall of 2.4 per cent on a reported basis, due to the effects of exchange rates and changes to the group's structure.
