Sanofi said its R&D chief, Houman Ashrafian, will exit as newly appointed CEO Belén Garijo moves to reshape the company’s R&D leadership. Paulo Fontoura, M.D., Ph.D., will replace Ashrafian as head of Sanofi’s stuttering research group, according to the report. The change underscores Garijo’s focus on repairing a stuttering pipeline—an area that has become a central strategic concern for the company amid competitive pressure in key therapeutic areas. Leadership transitions of this kind often precede program prioritization, budget reallocation, and portfolio pruning. For the biotech and pharma ecosystem, the move signals that even large incumbents are actively reengineering late-stage execution and early discovery governance to regain momentum.