Are any further pharmaceutical executive moves still possible?

Thirteen pharmaceutical companies changed their heads last year, during a period when shareholders pushed harder for results and the market no longer witnessed the increases it once boasted. Whereas until 2009 personnel movements were not uncommon in the industry, with acquisitions further speeding up the migration process, 2009 can be said to have marked a record. For the first time there were executives with three mandates in one year or companies that changed more than two heads. “It’s about market pressures on the one hand, and about the changes that hurt companies’ results, on the other. Nevertheless, one cannot generalise and each case needs to be analysed separately,” said Dragos Dinu, a partner with Link Resource consultancy. Will there be any more changes in 2010? “More than certainly,” says Dragos Dinu. The domestic pharmaceutical market reached 8.1bn RON in 2009, up 13.1% from 2008, but shrank by 9.1% in terms of volume. In euros, sales fell by 1.7%, to 1.9bn euros. Though the pharmaceutical industry is not the hardest hit industry by the crisis, it can be said to be the one to have caused managers the biggest headaches. If these changes were beneficial for shareholders, it remains to be seen. No further changes have been announced so far this year.