Novartis Chief Executive Joseph Jimenez will retire in 2018, with chief drug developer Vasant Narasimhan taking over as CEO starting in February, the Swiss drugmaker said on Monday.
Jimenez is stepping down following a decade at Novartis after having successfully secured US approval for a new gene therapy for leukemia last week but before Novartis returned to sales growth, which the company has forecast will resume in 2018.
“After 10 wonderful years in Switzerland, my family is ready to return to Silicon Valley and the United States,” said Jimenez, a Stanford University graduate.
Jimenez joined in 2007 to lead Novartis’s consumer health division and rose to CEO in 2010, according to a news agency.
