- Push-out Score determined
- After about eight years in the position
- Praise and thanks for Leiden
- Reshma Kewalramani taking over
- Leiden will remain as Executive Chairman at Vertex
- Leiden spoke at length and said 145 words
(exechange) — Boston, Massachusetts, July 25, 2019 — Jeff Leiden, chief executive of Vertex, leaves his post. His departure is made public at an early stage. As announced by Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a news release on Thursday, July 25, 2019, Jeffrey (Jeff) Leiden leaves his post as Chief Executive Officer at the biotechnology company after about eight years in the role, effective April 1, 2020.
Among the 3,000 largest publicly held companies incorporated in the U.S. based on market capitalization, the average tenure of the CEOs who departed over the past 12 months was 7.6 years, according to data compiled by exechange.
Long goodbye
It is a long goodbye. The announcement of Jeff Leiden’s move comes up to eight months prior to his planned departure from the post of CEO.
Jeff Leiden’s duties as CEO will be taken over by Reshma Kewalramani, currently Chief Medical Officer of Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated.
“Planned transition”
Jeff Leiden’s departure from the CEO post is explained as follows. Vertex said: “Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (Nasdaq: VRTX) today announced that its Board of Directors has approved the planned transition of Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Leiden, M.D., Ph.D, into the role of Executive Chairman of the Board, effective April 1, 2020.”
Share price increase since February 2012
The announcement follows an increase in Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated’s share price of 345% since February 2012.
In the position of CEO since 2012
Jeff Leiden became CEO of the company in February 2012.
Leiden has agreed to serve as Executive Chairman through the first quarter of 2023.
Leiden is the Company’s Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President.
He has held the positions of Chief Executive Officer and President since February 2012 after joining the Company as CEO Designee in December 2011.
He has been a member of the Company’s Board of Directors since July 2009, the Chairman of the Company’s Board of Directors since May 2012, and served as the Company’s lead independent director from October 2010 through December 2011.
Leiden was a Managing Director at Clarus Ventures, a life sciences venture capital firm, from 2006 through January 2012.
Leiden was President and Chief Operating Officer of Abbott Laboratories, Pharmaceuticals Products Group, and a member of the Board of Directors of Abbott Laboratories from 2001 to 2006.
From 1987 to 2000, Leiden held several academic appointments, including the Rawson Professor of Medicine and Pathology and Chief of Cardiology and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of Chicago, the Elkan R. Blout Professor of Biological Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
He is an elected member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Leiden serves as a director of Quest Diagnostics Inc., a medical diagnostics company, and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, an insurance company.
Leiden was a director and the non-executive Vice Chairman of the board of Shire plc, a specialty biopharmaceutical company, from 2006 to January 2012.
Leiden received his M.D., Ph.D. and B.A. degrees from the University of Chicago.
Push-out Score determined
The Push-out Score™ determined by exechange gauges the pressure surrounding the management change on a scale of 0 to 10.
exechange reached out to Vertex and offered the company the opportunity to comment on the score.
Read the full story in the exechange report 30.2019 ($).