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Sanofi appoints Dr. Gary J. Nabel as Chief Scientific Officer

Posted: 14 November 2012 | | No comments yet

Sanofi is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Gary J. Nabel…

Sanofi

Sanofi (EURONEXT : SAN ; NYSE : SNY) is pleased to announce today the appointment of Dr. Gary J. Nabel, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer and Deputy to the President for Global R&D, effective December 3, 2012. Dr. Nabel will report to Dr. Elias Zerhouni, President, Global R&D, and will join the group’s Global Leadership Team. He will be based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Dr. Nabel joins Sanofi from the National Institutes of Health, where he served as Director of the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1999. During his tenure at the NIH, Dr. Nabel provided overall direction and scientific leadership of the basic, clinical, and translational research activities of the VRC and guides development of novel vaccine strategies against HIV and other emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, including Ebola/Marburg hemorrhagic fevers, influenza, chikungunya and other viruses.

“Dr. Nabel’s impressive scientific record and experience will be extremely valuable to the Group”, declared Christopher A. Viehbacher, Chief Executive Officer, Sanofi. “I am confident that with his leadership, we can drive R&D further towards tomorrow’s breakthrough discoveries.”

In his new position, Dr. Nabel will be responsible for assessing and coordinating Sanofi’s scientific direction for biopharmaceuticals, vaccines and animal health with a focus on improving translational approaches across Sanofi. In his role, he will lead the evaluation of scientific quality of projects and programs across all of R&D, and participate in setting Sanofi’s overall strategy.

“I am very excited that Dr. Nabel will join Sanofi’s R&D organization”, said Dr. Elias Zerhouni, President, Global R&D, Sanofi. “Our challenges today require that we re-invent our R&D model. Gary’s experience will be invaluable to help us achieve this goal.”

“I am honored and excited to join Dr. Zerhouni and the Sanofi team”, said Dr. Gary Nabel. “By strengthening our scientific base, we hope to accelerate the rational development of innovative treatments that will save lives and improve human health.”

Dr. Gary J. Nabel Biography

Dr. Nabel has an extensive and distinguished background of academic and hospital appointments, and committee memberships including numerous prestigious awards and honors and an extensive publication record. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1975 and continued his graduate studies at Harvard University, completing his Ph.D. in 1980 and his M.D. in 1982. He served as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of David Baltimore at MIT’s Whitehead Institute. Before his appointment at the Vaccine Research Center, Dr. Nabel served as the Henry Sewall Professor of Internal Medicine, Professor of Biochemistry, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In addition to his faculty positions, Dr. Nabel also served as the Director of the Center for Gene Therapy and co-director of the Center for Molecular Medicine at the University of Michigan. In recognition of his expertise at the forefront of virology, immunology, gene therapy, and molecular biology, Dr. Nabel was elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1998.