Roche Taps Genentech Chief to Lead Pharmaceuticals Division
December 10 2018 - 06:54AM
Dow Jones News
By Denise Roland
Roche Holding AG on Monday appointed Bill Anderson, head of its
Genentech unit, to lead the company's broader pharmaceuticals
business, elevating an insider at a critical time for the
division.
The move follows the departure of company veteran Daniel O'Day,
who is leaving the Swiss health care giant to be chief executive of
Gilead Sciences Inc. Mr. Anderson, 52, joined Genentech in 2006 and
held various sales and marketing roles before becoming head of the
subsidiary last year.
The management change comes as Roche Pharmaceuticals, the
company's largest division, confronts several challenges. Roche is,
for the first time, facing competition for its three top-selling
drugs--Herceptin, Rituxan and Avastin--as cheaper copies start to
go on sale in Europe and are set to launch in the coming years in
the U.S.
The company will also lose a lucrative revenue stream next year
after a patent protecting a key process in the manufacture of
antibody-type drugs expires this month. The Cabilly patent, as it
is known, allowed Roche to collect hundreds of millions of dollars
in royalties a year relating to some of the world's biggest-selling
drugs, including AbbVie Inc.'s Humira. The patent generated 834
million Swiss francs ($844 million) for Roche in 2017.
It will fall to Mr. Anderson to grow Roche's newer drugs, like
Ocrevus for multiple sclerosis and Perjeta for breast cancer. These
and several more of Roche's fastest-growing drugs were developed by
the Genentech subsidiary.
In an unusual arrangement, Genentech's research and development
organization competes internally with Roche's to get drugs to
late-stage development. That structure was put in place when Roche
took full ownership of Genentech in 2009 to preserve the much
younger Californian biotech company's distinctive culture.
"Bill brings both in-depth knowledge of our industry and
extensive global leadership experience," said Roche Chief Executive
Severin Schwan.
Mr. Anderson, an American, will become chief executive of Roche
Pharmaceuticals on Jan. 1. The division, which includes the
Genentech subsidiary, generates around three-quarters of Roche's
total revenue, with the rest coming from its diagnostics
business.
Write to Denise Roland at Denise.Roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 10, 2018 06:39 ET (11:39 GMT)
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