For a man who has remained at the helm of his company through four mergers, travels regularly around Europe and the US on business and also plays a part in negotiating healthcare policy with Government, driving to work should be a doddle.

Not for John McLaughlin, managing director of Sanofi-Aventis in Ireland, the Republic's number four pharmaceutical company.

"Battling with the M50 on my way to work is definitely the most stressful part of my day," says McLaughlin, who commutes by car from his home in north Dublin to the company's offices in the city centre. "It doesn't make any difference what time I leave home in the morning or work in the evening, it is always the most difficult part of my day."

To some who do not know Dublin's M50 during rush hour, this comment will undermine Mclaughlin's achievements. But for many fellow commuters who can relate to his frustrations, it will simply serve to show that he lives a normal life.

Born in Donegal in 1945, McLaughlin spent part of his childhood in the US, where his father, like many of that generation, went to seek his fortune. He returned to Ireland for his first job, which saw him "carrying the suitcase" for Abbot Laboratories, a position he says everyone in the pharmaceutical industry should experience. To anyone without the industry lingo, he was a sales representative.

After three years travelling around the west promoting and selling drugs to doctors' practices and hospitals, McLaughlin moved to Dublin in search of promotion. After taking on the sales-rep position for the north Dublin area, he worked his way up through the company, becoming head of its pharmaceutical division by the time he left in 1986.

"It gave me a very good grounding in the industry and is the sort of start I would recommend for everyone. It helps you understand the fundamentals of the job and the industry."

The terms "understanding" and "pharmaceutical industry" are difficult to put together, according to McLaughlin.

"It is a very complicated industry with an even more complicated history," he says, acknowledging that his own career provides an excellent example of this fact.

In 1986 he joined May & Baker, which was owned by French drug company Rhone-Poulenc, as managing director, a position he in theory still holds now, though 19 years and four mergers later, he is head of Sanofi-Aventis in Ireland instead of May & Baker.

Sanofi-Aventis, Europe's largest drug company and the world's third largest, was formed through the merger of Sanofi-synthelabo and Aventis Pharma last year, a process McLaughlin says will become a textbook example of the perfect merger procedure because of the speed with which it was completed. It started trading as a combined company at the start of this year, and this week reported net income of €2.97 million in the first half on sales of €13.1 million.

With an annual research and development budget of almost €4 billion, Sanofi-Aventis has one of the best drug pipelines in the industry, says McLaughlin, who is not shy to blow the company's trumpet.

It is currently developing 128 products, 48 of which are at the late stages of development. Currently none of this research money is spent in Ireland, but that is something that McLaughlin is looking to change.

In the Republic, the group has two operations which had combined sales of €70 million last year. It employs 170 people at its Waterford plant, which produces creams and ointments, and had sales of €32.4 million last year, and a further 116 people at its sales and marketing unit in Dublin. That division has grown by about 16 per cent since 2004 and will increase by a further 10 per cent between now and the end of 2006, according to McLaughlin. Sales were €42 million in the first half of this year and McLaughlin is forecasting €84 million for the full year. 2005 figures are not yet available for the Waterford plant.

Sanofi-Aventis offers 90 different products in Ireland, ranging from Plavix, an anti-thrombosis drug, to Taxotere, used for treating patients undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer.

According to McLaughlin, who is also vice president of the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA), Ireland is the ideal model for how the pharmaceutical industry should work. In contrast to many other countries, Irish patients have very quick access to the drugs once they have been approved by the Department of Health, allowing doctors in some cases to treat the condition before it becomes too severe, he says.

Still, while the industry has a pretty good relationship with Government, its next big challenge is to negotiate a new agreement on drug pricing, regulation and reimbursement between IPHA and the department. The last one expired in July and new negotiations have yet to start, he says.

As for the other challenges, excluding of course the daily commute to work, McLaughlin is determined to make Sanofi-Aventis Ireland's number one drug company. The group currently sits behind Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca in terms of drug sales, though this does not include sales to hospitals, which account for 22 per cent of Sanofi-Aventis' revenue.

"You have to have ambition," he says. "We can't afford to stand still if we want to become the number one."

So far this year the group has grown faster than the market, he says emphatically, insisting that this is not the last we will hear of Sanofi-Aventis in Ireland.