PARIS (Reuters) - The Sanofi (PA:SASY) executive in charge of diabetes and cardiovascular products, Pascale Witz, will leave the French drugmaker on June 1 as part of a management shake-up, the company said on Monday.
The departure of Witz, executive vice president for diabetes and cardiovascular products, is one of a number of changes to Sanofi's executive committee that the company said were designed to support a five-year plan unveiled last November.
The so-called "2020 strategic roadmap" aims to revive its diabetes division, hurt by declining sales of patent-expiring blockbuster Lantus, and to expand in other areas.
The group's diabetes and cardiovascular division saw net sales fall 5.8 percent at constant currency exchange rates in the first quarter.
"We felt it was the appropriate time to make changes to the leadership organisation as we move into the next stage of executing our priorities," a spokeswoman said in an email, without elaborating further on Witz' departure.
Sanofi said in November that investment in products to compensate for declining diabetes drug sales and cost cuts would prevent any meaningful profit growth in the next two years.
Carsten Hellmann, executive vice president at animal health division Merial, will stay with the group until the end of the year before moving to a new job as president and chief executive of Danish pharmaceutical firm ALK, Sanofi said.
The French company said last December it had held exclusive talks to swap its animal health arm for the consumer health business of Germany's Boehringer Ingelheim. The company said on the sidelines of its first-quarter results the talks were still ongoing.
"Sanofi plans to name at a later date an executive vice president for consumer healthcare who will be a member of the executive committee," the company said.
Suresh Kumar, executive vice president for external affairs, will also leave the group by year-end while David Loew, executive vice president and general manager of Sanofi Pasteur, the company's vaccines division, will join the executive committee.
The changes in the executive committee are due to take effect on June 1, the company said.
Sanofi went public with a $9.3 billion offer to buy Medivation in April, setting up what could be a lengthy takeover battle after the U.S. cancer firm rebuffed its approaches.