December 29, 2014
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk is likely to lose beloved Chief Executive Officer Lars Rebien Soerensen as soon as next year, the CEO recently told a local newspaper, prompting rampant speculation about who could take the spot of a man who has been with Novo since 1982.
Whilst overseeing Novo, Rebien Soerensen was a godsend for investors, who saw their dividends increase nine-fold, or an average gain of 17 percent annually. That number nearly tripled the gains earned by the average for European stock performance or what biopharma shares returned on American indices.
The leader of the world’s largest maker of diabetes treatments told Danish paper Berlingske in an interview that he will probably not serve out the rest of his contract until 2019, though he has not yet decided on timing, which could be as soon as next year.
Bloomberg, which reported the story domestically, said that Mike Rulis, a Novo spokesman, confirmed that Rebien Soerensen was accurately quoted but declined to comment further.
“[He] has been there for a very long time, so the board is naturally looking at having a fresh pair of hands to lead the company,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sam Fazeli in its story. “The CEO has always made sure that the management team is very visible. It’s not at all a one-man show.”
Speculation has swirled about a possible CEO step down since last January, when Scandinavia’s largest drugmaker said it would promote Chief Operating Officer Kaare Schultz to president, a move often interpreted by Wall Street as the grooming of a potential successor. Rebien Soerensen hinted at the time that might be the case, though he offered no concrete details.
“It gives Kaare an opportunity to develop his leadership skills,” he said. “So you could say that he’s getting a head start.”
Whether or not Schultz will be as good at beating the market remains to be seen: Novo has seen boom times lately, with insulin sales leaping 14 percent year-over-year since 2004 and a recent stock bump from the Dec. 23 news that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its obesity drug Saxendra. Novo currently has a market value of $115 billion, putting it in the top 20 largest drugmakers worldwide.
