The passage of witness will be December 1

Pattern change, change of strategy. Sanofi-Aventis confirmed yesterday noon the departure of Gérard Le Fur, his current boss, a year and a half after his appointment, and its replacement by Chris Viehbacher, a manager of GlaxoSmithKline to dual Canadian and German nationality ("Les Echos" of yesterday). The passage of witness will be December 1. Chris Viehbacher compete clause in principle prevented him to go to a rival to the British group before one year, but an agreement has been reached to accelerate the movement.

At the end of the Board of Directors which was held yesterday in emergency, the Administrators held to send a clear message to investors. If they chose a nine man, came from abroad and of all just forty-eight years, is not only because they felt Gérard Le Fur poor manager and that its relations with the President of the Council and ex-PDG Jean-François Dehecq had become terrible. This is especially for flat economic model of the group. The first sentence of the press release published yesterday is explicit: "the evolution of the global pharmaceutical sector led the major actors to profoundly change their strategy. After a series of setbacks, especially the refusal of the authorities to register its anti-obesity rimonabant pill, which left a huge hole in the "pipeline" of the group, large shareholders in Total and l ' Oréal have imposed a strategic review of magnitude.

"Adapt the research".

They have already established the future Director General three missions in this sense. The first: "adapt the research". It's the lessons of the case of rimonabant. The U.S. FDA, become very critical since the Vioxx scandal, had then found lacking data on side effects of the drug. Chris Viehbacher will aim to ensure that registration records submitted by Sanofi are more supported both medically and economically. "Anticipate requests for health authorities and payers such as American HMO", says one at Headquarters.

Second mission, more classic: "strengthen significantly" laboratory growth in emerging countries, in Asia, in Russia, the Brazil, but in the countries of the East also. What is a strong pressure on Gérard Le Fur to complete before leaving the OPA on Czech Zentiva, which currently refuses his advances...

The third axis is the most original: Sanofi must diversify. The major medicines derived from the research will remain the heart of its activity. But given the risks of this business, "it sought other ways", explains a close. To go further in generic drugs Too late, the seats are already taken, found officials. The solution is therefore to build on healthy foods, shows concurrent sources.

Sanofi-Aventis has already put one foot in this area, with the purchase of Symbion, the leader of the market in Australia. It's now more acquisitions in this promising sector of vitamins, minerals and other supplements "functional foods". A domain that Danone and Nestlé have approached from food skills and that Sanofi wants to conquer through its pharmaceutical expertise, on the model of Johnson & Johnson. "It is a very fragmented market, with a myriad of companies among which the group will be able to do her shopping, note a connoisseur of the folder. Sanofi is built by a series of acquisitions. He is to renew this approach in the nutraceutical.