'Innovation key to Lilly's success'

The next chief executive of Eli Lilly and Co said his scientific training and experience as a chemist would help the drugmaker develop new medicines and maintain its research prowess.

John Lechleiter, scheduled to take over on April 1 from longtime CEO Sidney Taurel, has also headed regulatory affairs, laboratories and the company's far-flung pharmaceuticals operations during his 28-year climb to the top at Lilly.

"My experience equips me to meet the company's biggest challenge, which is to bring new molecules forward," Lechleiter said in an interview. He said he intends to give Lilly scientists the breathing space needed for invention.

"As CEO, I will be careful to allow scientific leaders to carry out their functions without me trying to serve as their surrogate."

He did not seem concerned that his ultimate stamp on Lilly may be compared with the legendary career of Roy Vagelos, a medical researcher at Merck & Co who eventually headed the company's laboratories and, as Merck CEO, spurred development of many of the industry's most innovative drugs. Vagelos retired in 1994.

"We can stand shoulder to shoulder with Merck's track record of success" in the laboratory, Lechleiter said. "And in the years ahead, Lilly will continue to prosper on its very strong scientific skills."

He said Lilly's future success could hinge in part on its ability to create medicines tailored for the genetic makeup of patients, an emerging discipline known as personalized medicine. Lilly prefers the term "tailored therapeutics".

The father of three children in their 20s - a daughter and two sons - Lechleiter said he walks to and from work in downtown Indianapolis "because my wife needs the car."

As for hobbies, he said he likes to relax at the family farm in southern Indiana and play a little golf. "My handicap is probably worse than Jeff Immelt's," he joked, referring to the CEO of General Electric.

Lechleiter, who studied chemistry at Xavier University in Cincinnati and received a doctorate in chemistry at Harvard, acknowledges being a fairly rabid New York Yankees fan.

Agencies

(China Daily 12/20/2007 page16)