Chris Viehbacher
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Chris Viehbacher is the managing partner of Gurnet Point Capital, a Boston based investment fund associated with the Bertarelli family and has a $2 billion capital allocation. He is also the chairman of PureTech’s board of directors. Chris is the former CEO and member of the board of directors of Sanofi and was also the chairman of the board of Genzyme in Boston.
Prior to joining Sanofi, he spent over 20 years with GlaxoSmithKline in Germany, Canada, France and, latterly, the U.S. as president of its North American pharmaceutical division. He began his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and qualified as a chartered accountant. Chris currently serves on the boards of Alladapt, BEFORE Brands, Corium, Crossover Health, Boston Pharmaceuticals, Zikani, York River Holdings, Gurnet Point Capital LLC and as chairman of Vedanta. He is also a trustee of Northeastern University and a member of the board of fellows at Stanford Medical School.
Chris has been a strong advocate for the healthcare industry. Past advocacy roles include: former co-chair with Bill Gates of the CEO Roundtable on Neglected Diseases; chairman of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer; chairman of the board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America in Washington; and president of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations in Brussels. He has served on various advisory groups at MIT, Duke University and Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario. At the World Economic Forum at Davos, Chris was a chair of the Health Governors and co-chaired an initiative to create a Global Charter for Healthy Living. He was also a member of the International Business Council. He has received the Pasteur Foundation Award for outstanding commitment to safeguarding and improving health worldwide and received France’s highest civilian honor, the Legion d’Honneur. He received his bachelor’s degree in commerce from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada.