Departing Pharma CEOs Leave Waning Sales for Successors to Solve
- Novo Nordisk is latest company to appoint a new CEO this year
- Gilead, Lilly, Biogen, Valeant also saw leaders depart
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Another pharmaceutical chief executive is riding off into the sunset, the latest departure in an industry struggling to invent new medicines amid unprecedented pricing pressure.
Novo Nordisk A/S’s Lars Rebien Soerensen, chosen by Harvard Business Review as the world’s best-performing CEO last year, is retiring from the world’s biggest maker of insulin, the company said Thursday. He joins Gilead Sciences Inc.’s John Martin and Eli Lilly & Co.’s John Lechleiter in yielding the reins to a company veteran. GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Andrew Witty is also stepping down, and a successor will probably be named soon.