Takeda appoints Glaxo boss as next chief executive candidate
ONE OF the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies has poached a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) veteran to inherit the top job leading the company in future.
Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Asia’s biggest drugmaker, has appointed the head of GSK’s vaccine unit Christophe Weber to become chief operating officer from April next year. The role is used as a training ground for the company’s future chief executive and the firm said Weber was now next in line to become the boss of the Japan-based business.
Incumbent chief executive Yasuchika Hasegawa said “We have extremely high expectations for Mr Weber’s contributions to further enhance and accelerate the implementation of Takeda’s global strategy based on his extraordinary and broad business experiences including an impressive track record in top global pharmaceutical companies.”
Weber has been at GSK for 20 years and headed the group’s French operations between 2003 and 2008.
After this, he left Europe to go and work in Singapore as senior vice-president for GSK Asia before moving back to Brussels in 2011 to take up his current role.