‘There are moments’: Sanofi’s new CEO is thinking through the R&D strategy — and oncology will be key

“When you visit science, everything looks perfect,” says Sanofi’s newly named CEO Paul Hudson, who’s been on the job all of about a month now. “It smells of fresh paint.”

But in a world where everything looks fresh and new and innovative, where all companies boast about being unique and cutting edge, those poignant occasions when something truly special leaps out at you can be rare. And he tells a story of meeting a scientist at Sanofi’s R&D organization — the Harvard-trained Virginia Savova — who had been working on new AI technology that analyzes samples from autoimmune patients that can be used to examine single immune cells. Follow that trail, and it can lead you to some new places in medicine. Places Sanofi wants to go.