The decision by the board of Sanofi-Aventis of France last month to oust its chief executive and replace him with not only an outsider to the company but a foreigner, signalled a turning point for both the country’s pharmaceutical industry and its business model.

The appointment of Chris Viehbacher, who has dual Canadian and German citizenship and who has been running the North American operations of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), was only the most eye-catching in a series of shake-ups in a sector and a nation that have traditionally preferred home-grown solutions to problems.