Pascal soriot religion

When Pascal Soriot was appointed CEO of AstraZeneca in 2012, the pharmaceutical giant was in poor health compared with its European counterparts. One of the main reasons for the company’s decline in profits – a fall of 31 percent between the second and third quarters of 2012 – was the expiration of a number of its pharmaceutical product patents, including Crestor (a treatment for cholesterol) and Nexium (a heartburn remedy), with no new products to replace them. In short, AstraZeneca had, for a number of years, failed to invest in R&D. This was something Soriot needed to address quickly.