The German pharmaceutical group Merck announced on Monday the arrival at its head in May 2021 of the Spanish Belén Garijo, who will also be the sole patron of a group listed on the flagship index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Dax.
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Belén Garijo, 60, will succeed Stefan Oschmann, 63, who ran the laboratory for five years.
Belén Garijo will be the second woman to lead one of the 30 largest German groups.
The American Jennifer Morgan was appointed co-director of the software manufacturer SAP in October 2019 but she left the group at the end of April, leaving the controls in the care of her only co-director, the German Christian Klein.
The arrival of Belén Garijo - current director of human resources and pharmaceutical activity at Merck - is a change in continuity, the group stressed.
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Belén Garijo joined the German laboratory ten years ago from the French group Sanofi.
She has since helped to reorganize its pharmaceutical sector - weakened by the expiration of patents -, to boost the research activity and to broaden the horizon of the group until then focused on Europe towards the United States and from China.
