LONDON, Nov 6 (APM) - AstraZeneca's chief executive on Thursday declined to comment over any possible interest in becoming CEO of Sanofi following Chris Viehbacher's sacking from the post last week.
Bloomberg news agency reported last week Sanofi's board approached Pascal Soriot earlier this year.
Speaking to reporters in a telephone conference call after announcing third-quarter results, Soriot said he was unable to comment on speculation he might be interested in moving to Sanofi.
"I am often referred to in the press as 'the French man'. My family live in Australia and that is where I will retire. I can't answer this one unfortunately."
He also declined to speculate over whether Pfizer is likely to return with a higher offer for AstraZeneca following its failed 85 billion euros bid earlier this year, but said U.S. law changes designed to deter U.S. companies from buying overseas companies to cut their tax bills, in so-called tax inversion deals, were deterring hostile bids.
"The new U.S. rules have suddenly raised the bar for tax inversions and they have almost entirely removed the tax benefits and so make tax inversions much less attractive. Pfizer will have to do their own assessment.
"Suddenly you see the AbbVie/Shire deal collapse and that sends a strong signal that this is a risk. That cost AbbVie a lot of money. Tax inversion risk is becoming a reality."
AbbVie was forced to pay a $1.6 billion break fee to Shire after it pulled out of its planned $54 billion takeover of the Dublin-based pharma last month.
Growth prospects for antiplatelet Brilinta in the U.S. will depend heavily on the outcome of the PEGASUS trial, in secondary prevention for myocardial infarction, with results due out early next year.
He described Brilinta's sales as being on a "nice trend ... We are very confident it will continue to progress but it all depends on the PEGASUS study. It bodes well for 2015."
Soriot emphasised this was the third consecutive quarter of revenue growth. (APMMA 40341). However, he said it was not possible to say whether this was the turning point in the company's return to growth as it still faced imminent generic competition from two of its biggest-selling products, Crestor in cardiology and proton pump inhibitor, Nexium.
The recent quarters demonstrate is becoming "much more resilient". But he cautioned, challenges lay ahead.
"We need to be realistic. The loss of Nexium and Crestor patents will create headwinds. Whether we can create growth over the next year or two remains to be seen, but losing those will be challenging."
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