Dr. Claudia Fleischer will become the new Managing Director and Spokesperson of the Management Board of Roche Diagnostics GmbH in Mannheim and Penzberg on January 1, 2023. Her predecessor Claus Haberda will retire at the turn of the year after 30 years with Roche. Fleischer will also become a member of the management board of Roche Deutschland Holding GmbH.
Dr. Claudia Fleischer studied pharmacy at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and earned her PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. She started her career at Roche in 2004 as a clinical trials coordinator in the Technical Development unit of the Pharma Division in Basel. Since then, she has held a variety of leadership roles with increasing responsibility in the Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics Divisions as well as Group Functions, and has worked in Mannheim, Penzberg and served as Managing Director of the Roche site in Ludwigsburg. Most recently, Fleischer was managing director of Roche's pharmaceutical sales company in Romania.
"I am looking forward to the new tasks and challenges," says Fleischer, specifying: "The industrial healthcare industry is of great importance to Germany. At the same time, we face challenges here such as high bureaucratic costs, a shortage of skilled workers, and an aggravating legal framework. Together with the employees in Germany, I will work to further strengthen the innovative power of Germany as a business location and create framework conditions that allow employees to further increase our positive contribution to patients."
Farewell after challenging years
Claus Haberda will retire at the end of the year. He looks back on three eventful years as managing director. He navigated employees at the Mannheim and Penzberg sites through the Corona pandemic. The consequences of the Ukraine war on energy security and supply chains also required his attention. In addition, Haberda brought Roche's German sites closer together, took care of an up-to-date organization and advocated for further investments and long-term site development. Over the past three years, for example, more than 1.4 billion euros have flowed into Mannheim and Penzberg. The Group is thus strengthening the two largest Roche sites in Germany in terms of their competencies and their importance in Roche's global development and production network.