Sanofi's Viehbacher spotlights Big Pharma's new role creating biotechs

One of Chris Viehbacher's favorite themes since he's taken the helm at Sanofi ($SNY) is the woefully low level of R&D productivity in the business and how that has to change. So it's no surprise that when Forbes magazine recently highlighted the fact that new drugs at some pharma companies could cost as much as $8 billion to $12 billion each, on average, he seized on the numbers and used them to illustrate the industry's dilemma in a speech yesterday in North Carolina. And he highlighted Sanofi's recent decision to join forces with a prominent Boston VC group on a $125 million company launch as a new business model that can work for everyone in biotech. Report