Watson appoints management consultant to oversee Actavis acquisition

Watson has appointed Marc Lehnen to lead its new global integration management office, set up to support its €4.3bn acquisition of Swiss generics company Actavis.

Lehnen will join the US company on July 1 from McKinsey, where he spent 10 years, during which time he served in the management consultants' European healthcare practice.

Taking up the newly-created position of senior vice president of global integration management at Watson Lehnen's role will be to focus on planning and implementing the integration of Actavis.

Lehnen will be involved in integration planning before his official July start-date, and will report to Actavis president and CEO Paul Bisaro.

“Marc has years of experience in the generic industry and knows our culture and way of operating.  Marc will be charged with identifying members of senior management across the organisations to support the global integration of the two companies, and developing and executing the strategies necessary to bring Watson and Actavis together following the close later this year,” Bisaro said.

Watson expects the Actavis deal to close in the fourth quarter of 2012, which it says will make it the third largest generics company in the world, with more than 17,000 employees and pro forma revenues of around €6bn.