Teva restructures, shuffles executive team
On the heels of its appointing a new CEO, Teva is restructuring itself and naming new executives in an effort it said would create strategic alignment across its portfolio, regions and functions and drive profits as it continues to face headwinds.
“Teva is taking decisive and immediate action to address external pressures and internal inefficiencies,” Teva president and CEO Kåre Schultz said. “Our new company structure will enable stronger alignment and integration between R&D, operations and the commercial regions, allowing us to become a more agile, lean and profitable company.”
Under the new structure, the global generics and specialty medicines groups will be integrated into a single commercial organization covering North America, Europe and growth markets. Each region will manage the entire portfolio from OTC to specialty and generic pharmaceuticals. Generic and specialty R&D wings also will be combined into a single global group responsible for all R&D across generics, specialty and biologics. The company also will have a newly formed Marketing and Portfolio function, which will oversee communication between regions, R&D and operations for all products. Teva said the new organizational structure would rely on a leaner infrastructure in its finance, legal, HR and global brand and communications
Along with the new organization, Teva has created a new executive team. The company has named interim CFO Mike McClellan as its executive vice president and CFO, named Hafrun Fridriksdottir — most recently chief commercial officer for global specialty medicine — executive vice president of North America commercial. The company’s European generics president and CEO Richard Daniell is now executive vice president of European commercial and Gianfranco Nazzi will move to the executive vice president of growth markets commercial position from his role as presient and CEO of Teva’s generic group’s growth markets division. Addtionally, Sven Dethlegs is now executive vice president of global marketing and portfolio, having most recently been global head of respiratory medicines and COO of Teva Global Operations.
“The new management team will position Teva for turnaround in the short to medium term. We are already working on a detailed restructuring plan for Teva and will share it in mid-December,” Schultz said. “It remains our absolute priority to stabilize the company’s operating profit and cash flow in order to improve our financial situation, while being focused on short-term revenue and cash generation, and at the same time, ensure we deliver on our commitment to supply high-quality medicines to patients around the world.”
With the structural changes, Michael Hayden, Rob Koremans and Dipankar Bhattacharjee will retire, effective Dec. 31.