Teva Pharmaceuticals' new CEO Richard Francis has continued his transformation of the Israeli company, bringing on Christine Fox as the new head of its U.S. commercial business, replacing 15-year Teva veteran Sven Dethlefs, who departs Nov. 17.
Fox arrives from Novartis, where she has been the global president of gene therapies for nearly two years. Before that, Fox spent six years at Amgen, holding three different vice president posts, including heading up sales and, later, the cardiometabolic, bone and nephrology unit.
“Chris is a heralded pharmaceutical executive with extensive experience growing and overseeing complex business units and regional operations throughout the world,” Francis said in a release.
Dethlefs leaves after 15 years in key roles at Teva, including two years heading up global operations and three years in charge of global marketing and portfolio.
Fox’s hire comes two months after Teva tapped Angus Grant, Ph.D., to take over as Teva’s head of business development. Grant arrived after serving in a similar role at BeiGene, where he orchestrated high-profile PD-1 and TIGIT deals with Novartis.
On the first day of this year, Francis replaced Kare Schultz, who witnessed Teva’s annual revenue decline dramatically—from $22.4 billion in 2017 to $14.9 billion in 2022—during his five years as CEO. Francis, who was the CEO of Teva rival Sandoz from 2014 to 2019, is charged with finding new growth engines.
In May, Francis laid out Teva’s “pivot to growth” strategy, focusing on pipeline and business development, while deemphasizing the company’s longtime dependence on generics. In July, reports surfaced that Teva was seeking to sell off its active pharmaceutical ingredients business, a further indication of the company’s desire to move away from generics.
Teva appears set to end its revenue slide this year, projecting a small increase to a window of $15 billion to $15.4 billion during its second-quarter earnings report.
Leading the reversal is Huntington's disease stalwart Austedo, which posted a 51% increase in sales in the U.S. during the period and is set to achieve blockbuster status this year. The company projects sales of Austedo to reach $2.5 billion by 2027.