Straight talk with...Gary Nabel

Abstract

It was a homecoming of sorts for Gary Nabel. Late last year, he stepped down as head of the Vaccine Research Center at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, and joined the French drug giant Sanofi to lead basic research operations from its US headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nabel, a New England native by birth, had previously spent 17 years in the Boston area, where he completed his scientific and medical training. As a young medical intern there, he met his wife Elizabeth Nabel at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. In 2009, Elizabeth left her post as director of the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda to lead the Brigham—and, after three years of maintaining a long-distance marriage, Gary finally followed her back to Massachusetts in December 2012.

As Sanofi's new chief scientific officer and chair of the company's strategic development and scientific advisory council, Nabel faces the gargantuan task of reinvigorating the company's drug pipeline. He sat down with Elie Dolgin to discuss his plan of fostering a new culture of scientific innovation at Sanofi.