Executive churn at pharma giant Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) has increased in recent times, so much so that it has caused stakeholders to sit up and take notice.
What Happened: As recently as Wednesday, New Jersey-based Merck said Roy Baynes, who is serving as head of Global Clinical Development and chief medical officer at Merck Research Labs, will retire from the company in July.
Baynes has been with Merck since 2013, and during his tenure, the company evolved further as an oncology company and snagged about 140 medicine and vaccine approvals globally across several therapeutic areas.
Eliav Barr, another company veteran, will take over from Baynes after the latter's retirement.
Effective July 11, Baynes will be joining Eikon Therapeutics as its EVP and CMO, the Hayward, California-based biotech startup said in a release. Incidentally, Roger Perlmutter, who served as president of Merck Research Labs until the end of 2020, joined Eikon as its CEO in May 2021.
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A Trend And Not Isolated Events? Baynes' departure may have been passed off as a routine management change if not for the slew of exits from Merck thus far this year.
On March 1, Merck said Julie Gerberding, chief patient officer and EVP of population health and sustainability, will retire from the company in May. Gerberding, who was with Merck for more than a decade, is scheduled to join the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in mid-May.
The New Jersey-based pharma giant announced on Jan. 20 that Frank Clyburn, EVP and president of Human Health, would leave on Feb. 1. Clyburn had joined the company in 2008 and stayed with it till his departure.
Subsequently, Merck announced three new leaderships for the Human Health unit, with Arpa Garay put in charge of marketing, Jannie Oosthuizen assuming responsibility for the unit's U.S. division and Deepak Khanna the international team.
Merck had a change of guard at the helm in mid-2021, when longtime CEO Ken Frazier was replaced with the company's CFO Robert Davis.
At last check, Merck shares were rising 1.51% to $80.50.
Photo: Courtesy of Jernej Furman on Flickr
