Rumblings about a change at the top of the troubled biotech have been out there for months. And now, for the second time this month, those murmurings are becoming public. The latest comes from Sheridan Snyder, who founded Genzyme in 1981 and ran until he recruited Henri Termeer in the mid-1980s to take over as chief executive. Snyder wants Termeer to go.
"A ceo change at Genzyme would be a good idea. Henri has had a good run of 20-plus years but what Genzyme needs now is for someone new to come in with higher energy and a different vision. This would help the company," Snyder tells The Street. "Henri is a very bright guy but he's also the most autocratic manager I have ever seen. He's someone who demands absolute loyalty from everyone, but this has created a tense, sterile environment."
Earlier this month, Genzyme added an independent director, Bob Bertolini, who was chief financial officer at Schering-Plough before it was acquired by Merck, under pressure from Relational Investors, an activist hedge fund (see here). The biotech also added and shuffled management, according to an SEC filing.
Genzyme has endured nothing but trouble this year as quality control problems forced the biotech to suspend shipments of key products for such ailments as Gaucher’s and Fabry diseases, and the subsequent shortages prompted the FDA to allow rivals to jumpstart plans to produce their own meds to fill the void. Most recently, the FDA inspected Genzyme facilities and found stainless steel fragments, non-latex rubber from vial stoppers and fiber-like material from the manufacturing process (see here).
2 Comments
QA/QC problems will not be the death of Genzyme. It will be the biosimilars that will sell for less than the $150,000 a patient now has to pay for a drug like Cerezyme.
Hi Ed Just wanted your readers to be aware that Peter Wirth, one of our executives who knows both Sheridan Snyder and Henri Termeer well, posted a comment to The Street story today. Here's what Peter had to say:
"I was disappointed and angry to read Sherry Snyder’s comments. I know both Sherry and Henri well. As a partner at Palmer & Dodge, I served Sherry as outside general counsel, first at Genzyme and then in a number of his other ventures. Under Henri’s leadership, Genzyme became my largest client. Of course, I am not impartial. One of the best decisions I made was to accept Henri’s invitation to join Genzyme in 1996.
So why am I disappointed? Because Sherry’s interview misses an opportunity for rapprochement by dredging up old animosities. To understand this point you need look no further than the divergence of the careers of the two men. Sherry, ever the entrepreneur, embarked on a series of ventures after Genzyme that were, in the most charitable evaluation, only partially successful. Henri, on the other hand, built Genzyme into one of the most successful biotechnology companies of our time.
And why am I angry? Because to call for Henri’s resignation when we need him most is wrong-headed and petty. Genzyme’s deep commitment to patients and socially responsible conduct are charting the path other successful companies in our industry will surely follow. To be sure, we leveraged our resources to bring life-saving therapies to Pompe patients who desperately needed hope, and we are now paying the price for our ambition. Fair enough and no excuses. But the measure of greatness is not whether you stumble, but how you recover. And I have every confidence that, under Henri’s leadership, we will recover and go on to even greater achievements.