Staying Power Stands Roche Chief In Good Stead

When he took over Roche in 1978, the company was facing the same sort of difficulties that forced Boehringer Mannheim to surrender its independence. It had failed to find a replacement for Valium, the worlds first blockbuster drug, and it had squandered its profits from Valium on a series of ill-considered diversifications.

Gerber cut costs, cancelled the more ambitious diversification moves and refocused the business. It still took some time for Roches heavy research effort to start producing successful drugs again. But eventually its research paid off, with a series of new drugs which have underpinned a 25 per cent a year growth in net income over the past decade.

Roches market capitalisation has jumped from Sfr11 billion to Sfr110 billion ($77.8 billion).

Gerber belongs to a small clique of Swiss business leaders, such as Helmut Maucher of Nestl