Roche splits top roles
pharmafile | July 19, 2007 | News story | Sales and Marketing |
Roche's Franz Humer is stepping down as chief executive to concentrate on his role as chairman.
In splitting the top jobs, the board has appointed company insider Severin Schwan to succeed Humer as chief executive.
In a statement, Humer said the move was prompted by "the increasing complexity of the tasks involved".
"As chairman, I will continue to work with the board and executive committee to continue building Roche into a leading global healthcare corporation," he added.
Roche earned record-breaking profits for 2006, driven by pharma sales that grew by more than three times the market rate.
Growth rates continued to impress in the first half of this year, with pharma sales increasing by 18% – still nearly three times ahead of the market.
Growth was fuelled primarily by continued strong demand for key medicines in the division's oncology, metabolism, transplantation and virology portfolios.
Products making a major contribution to growth included the anti-influenza medicine, Tamiflu, and Lucentis, the recently launched medicine for age-related blindness.
The company expects the group and its pharma division to both make double-digit sales growth in local currencies for the full year of 2007.
The challenge for Roche's next chief executive will be to continue its exceptional growth. Schwan is currently chief executive of Roche Diagnostics and will take the new role at the next annual shareholders meeting in March 2008.
The 40-year-old Austrian first joined Roche in 1993 as a corporate finance trainee, rising to head of global finance for its diagnostics division and then head of the division's Asia-Pacific business.
He was promoted to his current position of chief executive for Roche Diagnostics in January 2006.
