AstraZeneca announced today that Jon Symonds, its chief financial officer for the past decade, was quitting the drugs giant to take up a job as a managing director of Goldman Sachs.

In a significant blow for the group, which is under growing pressure to fill a dwindling product pipeline, AstraZeneca said that Mr Symonds would resign next month.

The 48-year-old, who received £1.1 million in pay and bonuses last year, was one of the driving forces behind the Anglo-Swedish merger that created the group in 1999.

David Brennan, the chief executive, said: “Jon has played a critical role in driving AstraZeneca to become one of the leading, most focused and most successful pharmaceutical companies in the world.

“On a personal level, I have worked closely with him for several years and have valued his knowledge of the business, strategic thinking, and wise financial counsel enormously.”

The group said that an external search for a successor was under way.

Mr Symonds, who joined Zeneca in 1997 after 17 years at KPMG, will join Goldman Sachs in mid-September at partner level. A spokesman for Goldman said Mr Symonds would be based in London and focus on "enhancing existing, and developing new, client relationships".

A spokesman insisted that there was nothing controversial behind the decision.

He said: “These things happen. He has taken the job as he sees it as a good opportunity, a good career move.”

AstraZeneca was criticised two months ago after spending $15.2 billion (£7.6 billion) in April to acquire MedImmune , the US biotech.

Analysts said that the deal was too pricey at ten times the US group's 2007 sales.

However, Jeremy Batstone, head of private client research at Charles Stanley, said it was likely that Goldman Sachs had hired Mr Symonds for his deal-making ability.

Mr Batstone told Times Online: "He has done a number of deals with a number of companies, and in this area Goldman Sachs is second to none."

But he added: "This is not great timing for AstraZeneca because the company still has an absence of late-stage pipeline products.

"It needs to do something to address this, as it's a major issue. From 2010 it starts to lose the patents protecting sales of its five major blockbuster drugs, so the company is going to need to find an extremely experienced replacement."

The search represents the first big boardroom role that David Brennan has had to fill since taking over as chief executive from Sir Tom McKillop at the beginning of last year.

Four months ago he announced plans to eliminate 3,000 jobs across AstraZeneca's production and manufacturing teams in an effort to cut costs and boost efficiency.

Astra and its rivals, such as Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, are all feeling pressure from the sale of cheaper copies of their blockbuster treatments.

Astra has suffered a string of failures in new-stage products, meaning they do not reach commercial status.

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