October 13, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
The Harvard Business Review (HBR) recently created its annual list of the 100 top CEOs in the world. Seven biopharmaceutical executives made the list, with one of them, Lars Rebien Sorensen, the chief executive officer of Novo Nordisk , taking the number one spot.
HBR evaluated long-term performance, measuring returns, sustainability and governance. The chief executives, and their ranking, are:
#1 – Lars Rebien Sorensen, Novo Nordisk , Bagsvaerd, Denmark
#20 – Michael Mussallem, Edwards Lifesciences , Irvine, California
#21 – George Scangos, Biogen , Cambridge, Massachusetts
#50 – Hugh Grant, Monsanto , St. Louis, Missouri
#59 – Jean-Paul Clozel, Actelion , Allschwil, Switzerland
#67 – Leonard Schleifer, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals , Tarrytown, New York
#87 – Haruo Naito, Eisai , Tokyo, Japan
It’s also notable that two of chief executives are leaving their companies. Sorensen, who is president and chief executive officer, plans to retire at the end of this year. He will be replaced by the current executive vice president and head of Corporate Development, Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen.
Sorensen took over the company’s helm in 2000. Since then, the company’s share price has increased more than 840 percent. Its peak was in December 2015, but has dropped 22 percent since then. He is expected to be nominated to the board of directors of the Novo Nordisk Foundation and Novo A/S in 2017. The foundation awards grants, and Novo A/S is a wholly owned subsidiary of the foundation. Novo A/S managed the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s commercial operations.
And George Scangos, chief executive officer of Biogen, announced on July 21 that he was leaving the company just as soon as his replacement was found. Scangos has been with Biogen for six years. Before joining Biogen he was the chief executive officer of Exelixis . When he took over, Scangos shuttered its San Diego research facility, trimmed staff, and moved the company’s headquarters to Cambridge, as well as changing the overall strategy. He stopped Biogen’s focus on cancer and cardiovascular disease, refining its focus to neurological diseases.
Sorensen, seemingly not dismissive of the honor, however, does say that it’s about teamwork. FiercePharma writes, “Sorensen has repeatedly said that the Novo Nordisk team—not he himself, or any individual executive—is what matters to the company’s success, an outlook that’s antithetical to CEO rankings like this one, but perhaps fitting at a company with a ‘strong culture’ that pays its CEO a fraction of the compensation at other pharmas, especially U.S. companies.
“’To be honest, I think we’re highly overrated,’ Sorensen told the HBR for its latest feature. ‘At least in my business, success is far more of a team effort than the public would like to believe, especially in America.’”
HBR evaluated the company’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, as well as financial performance. They relied on ratings from Sustainalytics, for ESG, as well as CSRHub, a company that collects and aggregates ESG data.
Sorensen and Novo Nordisk ranked sixty for financial ranking, 32 for Sustainalytics ranking, and 144 for SCRHub ranking.
Mussalem and Edwards Lifesciences ranked 22 for financial, 302 for Sustainalytics, and 590 for CSRHub ranking.
Scangos and Biogen received 84 for financial ranking, 135 for Sustainalytics, and 273 for CSRHub.
Hugh Grants and Monstanto received 19 on financial ranking, 642 for Sustainalytics and 595 for CSRHub.
Jean-Paul Clozel and Actelion received 39 for financial ranking, 637 for Sustainalytics, and 492 for CSRHub.
Leonard Schleifer and Regeneron received 8 for financial ranking, 608 for Sustainalytics, and 868 for CSRHub.
Haruo Naito and Eisai received 106 on financial, 383 on Sustainalytics, and 413 on CSRHub.
