PARIS: Sanofi will hold a special board meeting on Wednesday at 0700 GMT to examine the French drugmaker's management structure, a source close to Sanofi told Reuters amid uncertainty over the future of its chief executive.
The board directors were hastily convened to the meeting on Tuesday evening, the source said. Representatives for Sanofi did not immediately reply to requests for comment outside of regular business hours.
Sanofi Chief Executive Chris Viehbacher had been unable to say on Tuesday whether he had the support of his board after the company's chairman declined to clarify his future during a meeting the previous day.
Several sources close to Sanofi's board told Reuters of an increasingly frosty relationship between Viehbacher and chairman Serge Weinberg, Sanofi's chairman since 2010.
Sanofi's first non-French boss, German-Canadian Viehbacher took his job in late 2008. He has transformed a very French drug company by making it much more international, winning the praise of many analysts and investors, but raising some hackles in Paris and directly butting heads with some board members over the past several months.
Les Echos newspaper this week published a letter from Viehbacher to the board, dated Sept. 4 and revealing his mistrust of Weinberg.
In the letter, Viehbacher said he had heard that Weinberg was "actively seeking a successor" to him. Viehbacher defended his track record - and urged the board to clarify his situation as soon as possible.
Sanofi's shares fell more than 10 percent on Tuesday, their biggest drop in 17 years, after the company warned its key diabetes business would probably not grow next year and as uncertainty over Viehbacher's role - which first surfaced on Monday - rattled investors.
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