GSK veteran named chief executive for Takeda
pharmafile | December 2, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | GSK, Takeda, christophe weber
Asia’s biggest drugmaker Takeda has named GlaxoSmithKline’s Christophe Weber as the leading candidate for the role of its next chief executive.
Weber, 47, has been at GSK for 20 years and is currently president of its vaccines division in Belgium.
He is set to become Takeda’s chief operating officer by April and president in June, the Osaka-based drugmaker said in a statement, before becoming chief executive in 2015.
If he gets the top job, this will make Weber the first non-Japanese leader in Takeda’s 230-year history.
The company has been making acquisitions and hiring senior executives from overseas to globalise its business in recent years.
“We considered the rights and wrongs and internal response of appointing a foreigner to head a company that greatly respects tradition,” said its current chief executive Yasuchika Hasegawao.
“Weber resonates with our philosophy. He’s dynamic, yet has sensitivity. I’m confident he’ll lead Takeda’s globalisation while following its good traditions.” Hasegawa said Takeda plans to name Weber as its new leader in 2015.
Takeda must grow in emerging markets, now the source of a majority of growth for the drug industry, using infrastructure gained through the Nycomed acquisition Hasegawa added.
Weber will be one of three internal board members Takeda hired from outside of the company in the past five years, following its chief commercial officer Frank Morich, who led Bayer’s healthcare unit, and its chief medical officer Tachi Yamada, who oversaw GSK’s research and development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s health programmes.
In September, Takeda also hired Francois-Xavier Roger, former chief financial officer at Millicom International Cellular, to be its new chief financial officer.
Ben Adams
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