A baby food expert

A new executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. has strong ties to the baby food business, but that doesn't necessarily mean the company will be keeping its Evansville-based Mead Johnson subsidiary.

Earlier this week, the drug company announced Marc-Jean Huet will become the chief financial officer on March 31. Huet had the same title at Royal Numico NV, a Dutch maker of baby food.

Pete Paradossi, a Mead Johnson spokesman, said the addition of Huet shouldn't be seen as a sign that Bristol-Myers is taking a different approach to Mead Johnson Nutritionals, which makes the Enfamil infant formula.

"His hiring does not indicate any change in strategy," Paradossi said. "BMS continues to review strategic options for Mead Johnson."

At an investors meeting last year, James Cornelius, chief executive officer, said Bristol-Myers can't make up its mind about Mead Johnson. The subsidiary remains profitable, but keeping it may not play into his ambition of making Bristol-Myers into a leading biopharmaceuticals companies, he said.

Bristol-Myers is weighing all of its "strategic alternatives," Cornelius said.

Paradossi said Cornelius had met Huet before either began to work for Bristol-Myers. The hiring of Huet may in part be a result of that earlier acquaintance, he said.

"Jim Cornelius had known Mr. Huet through his professional network and had met him on a number of occasions," Paradossi said.

Huet was an executive at Numico at a time when baby food companies were busy buying each other. Last year, Groupe Danone, a French maker of Danon yogurt, acquired Numico. Shortly before that, Nestle, a Swiss company, had bought Gerber for $5.5 billion, thus becoming the largest maker of baby food in the United States.

Huet will replace Andrew Bonfield at Bristol-Myers. Bonfield is leaving the company to pursue other career opportunities, according to a news release.

In other changes, Lamberto Andreotti, who oversees the Bristol-Myers' pharmaceuticals business, will take over the leadership of both Mead Johnson and another subsidiary, ConvaTec. ConvaTec is a maker of skin and wound treatments, and Bristol-Myers is also trying to decide if it will keep it.

Lamberto will "continue to help shape and drive the transformation of Bristol-Myers Squibb to a next-generation biopharma leader," Cornelius said in a news release.

Cornelius himself is a fairly new addition to the leadership of Bristol-Myers, having taken over the reins of the company as an interim CEO in September 2006.

Before that, he had been the chairman emeritus of Guidant, a producer of pacemakers and other heart devices that merged with Boston Scientific in April 2006.

In February, Cornelius was appointed to be the chairman of the Bristol-Myers Squibb board of directors. At the same time, the board terminated a contract that would have ended his tenure as CEO in May 2009.


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