GSK announces the appointment of Philippe Fauchet as president of GSK Japan. Philippe will report to Marc Dunoyer, who takes the new role as chairman of GSK Japan. Marc will continue to take overall leadership responsibility for GSK’s Pharmaceuticals business across the Asia Pacific/ Japan Region.

Philippe joins GSK from sanofi aventis where he was senior vice president, business development. He joined sanofi in 1996, and headed up the Eastern Europe region from 1997, before becoming vice president, Eastern Europe for Sanofi-Synthélabo in 1999. Philippe Fauchet took over as head of Sanofi-Synthélabo’s Japanese operations in June 2001 and was appointed as senior vice president Pharmaceuticals Operations, Japan in May 2005.

Philippe is a graduate of HEC (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales), and also holds a law degree. He joined Roussel Uclaf in 1984, and held a number of posts in France, Japan and Korea, before becoming vice president of the Asia-Pacific region for Hoechst Marion Roussel in 1995.

Marc Dunoyer, GSK’s president of Asia Pacific and chairman of Japan, said: “The depth of knowledge and experience Philippe gained through previous roles in Japan, his general business and commercial acumen and his proven leadership skills make him ideally suited to drive the growth of this key business. Over the next five years we have the potential to launch between 30 and 40 products in Japan and I look forward to working with Philippe to maximise this opportunity.”