February 2, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
The results of BioSpace’s third Biotech Temperature Poll are in and it appears that the biotech community is split on whether or not French drugmaker Sanofi will be able to find a new CEO in 2015 at all, after several months of fruitless searching and at least three rejections have left Wall Street buzzing.
When asked if Sanofi will be able to find a new CEO in the first half of 2015, the 374 respondents were almost evenly mixed, with 46 percent saying that Sanofi would be able to ink a new contract for the top spot, and 54 percent convinced it will take more time. In that same vein, 51 percent said they believed Sanofi wouldn’t even be able to get a new CEO by the second half of 2015, a sign that the French drugmaker has an uphill battle on its hands convincing someone (anyone!) to take the reins.
Most respondents believed that whoever does eventually take the job will likely be from a similar sized competitor, with 60 percent convinced the candidate will come from that pool. Forty percent, however, said they weren’t sold on the idea that a new Sanofi CEO will be coming from the Big Leagues, meaning it might be wise for the company to cast a wider net to catch smaller, less known candidates who could be looking to make a name for themselves.
The majority of the respondents in this week’s poll were from the United States, with 83 percent of self-identifying participants based in America. Three percent hailed from Canada, while the rest hailed from a host of countries including Belgium, Germany, India, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Israel, Singapore, Japan and the United Kingdom. Two percent of respondents declined to identify their country of domicile.
For states, New Jersey led the pack, with 16 percent of the poll’s respondents based in that state. California followed slightly less than 16 percent, then New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington coming in a mixed third. The rest of the domestic respondents were distributed throughout the U.S.
