Jon Symonds, the respected chief financial officer of drugmaker AstraZeneca, is to quit the Anglo-Swedish group for a role at Goldman Sachs, where his mandate will include boosting the role of private equity in the healthcare sector.

Mr Symonds (48) will take up a full-time job as a managing director and partner of the investment bank.

His departure is a blow to AstraZeneca, which remains under pressure to restructure and strengthen its pipeline of new drugs.

The unusual career switch highlights fresh interest in private equity's role in pharmaceuticals, a sector it has avoided because of the high risks involved in drug research and development.

Mr Symonds's resignation, which formally takes place at the end of next month, comes after a decade in the job. Two years ago he was beaten by David Brennan in his bid to replace Sir Tom McKillop as chief executive of AstraZeneca.

He said he was "disappointed" he had not been appointed to run the company, but stressed his relations with Mr Brennan were good. His decision reflected a desire to do something different, he said. "Still at my age I have got a lot of career going forwards."

Mr Symonds said his new job, which will begin in September,would include work in the UK, on global pharmaceuticals and in private equity.

"Pharmaceuticals and healthcare is probably the one area that private equity has not got its mind around because of the volatile profile of risk and reward. There are many, many opportunities to unpackage risks in a way that could not be done before," he said.

But the new role would be a departure. "I am not just going to do pharma from a different spot. I want to broaden out my sphere."

In the longer term he is interested in becoming chairman of a UK-quoted company, he said. "This gives me the opportunity to really broaden my knowledge across [ a range of] industries."

Mr Symonds said the AstraZeneca board had been fully informed since he began considering the job at the start of the year.

Yesterday's announcement was driven by the need to open the job search for his replacement externally.

He said the challenges for his successor included "getting a stronger pipeline and making [ the acquisition of] MedImmune work to justify that this was the right move for the company".

Goldman Sachs was joint broker to AstraZeneca and has acted as an adviser to the company and to businesses it has acquired, including MedImmune.