Diagnostics Czar

Roche chief looks to genomics for growth.

DAVID EWING DUNCAN

Heino von Prondzynski is not averse to dramatic change. As an undergraduate at Westf�lische Wilhelms Universit�t in M�nster, Germany, he wanted to be a physician. “But I was too lazy at school,” says the global head of the largest company of its kind in the world, Roche Diagnostics, in Basel, Switzerland. “Then I speeded up.” At 28, after just two years as a salesman at Bayer, he attracted the attention of that company�s chairman, who asked him what he expected to be doing at 50. “I told him I wanted to be on the board of a big pharmaceutical company,” he says. As it turned out, he missed his goal by only three months. At Roche, he brings a similar determination to changing the company�s focus.

Mr. von Prondzynski spent 20 years at Bayer, running operations in several countries, then moved to Chiron for 5 years. His mission since joining Roche�s executive committee in 2000 has been to maneuver the company�s considerable heft; as the first big pharmaceutical company with a major focus on molecular diagnostics, it currently boasts a 20% market share and $22 billion in sales. The molecular diagnostics market—which includes tests for SARS, AIDS, and other viruses, and potential tests for biowarfare pathogens—is projected to reach $2.4 billion by 2009, with billions more in related products, like gene chips.

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Stanley Falkow

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