In a pharma industry increasingly squeezed by falling legacy revenues, political pricing crackdowns, and the need to deliver the next wave of science at speed and scale, the right leadership is crucial. Four of the Top 25 global pharma companies – Novo Nordisk (ranked 10th), GSK (12th), Takeda (14th), and Merck KGaA (25th) have announced CEO changes so far in 2025 – as they attempt to safeguard their futures in an increasingly uncertain world.
All four companies have hired their new CEOs from within, reflecting the desire for a certain level of continuity. Notably, three will not take their places in the hot seat until 2026, allowing for a smoother leadership transition.
However, Danish-headquartered obesity and diabetes giant Novo Nordisk appears to have hit the panic button most strongly, ousting its long-term CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen and immediately replacing him with international commercial lead Maziar Mike Doustdar.
Doustdar – who has a proven track record and more than doubled international sales to approximately USD 17.6 billion – has announced 9,000 job cuts and a company-wide restructuring amid slowing growth for its GLP-1 / obesity business, competitive pressures (notably from Eli Lilly), declining investor sentiment, and guidance cuts.
Elsewhere, Big Pharma is losing two of its leading female executives in Merck’s Belén Garijo and GSK’s Emma Walmsley. While Julie Kim will step into the top job at Takeda – representing the first ever women to become CEO of a Japanese Big Pharma – her only other female counterparts among the Top 50 pharma companies will be Reshma Kewalramani of Vertex, Elcin Barker Ergun of the Menarini Group, and new Jazz Pharma CEO Renee Gala.
Like Novo Nordisk, GSK will be aiming for sharper commercial execution under its new CEO. Under Walmsley, the company underwent a major restructuring, which included spinning off its consumer health business to focus solely on biopharma, with a big emphasis on bolstering its R&D pipeline.
With these fundamentals now hopefully set, the markets responded positively to the appointment of Luke Miels, who currently serves as the UK firm’s chief commercial officer, as CEO. Having previously worked for AstraZeneca, Roche, and Sanofi, Miels has helped oversee several bolt-on deals since joining GSK in 2017 and will attempt to deliver on the company’s pipeline to achieve its ambitious commercial goals. Most prominent among these is bringing in annual revenues of GBP 40 billion by 2031 (up from 31 billion in 2024).
Over at German-headquartered Merck KGaA, Spanish national Garijo, who previously served as the company’s healthcare division head, is being replaced by Kai Beckmann, lead of Merck’s electronics division.
As Fierce Pharma’s Angus Liu points out, Merck is in a uniquely sensitive position as a producer of both pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. These two industries are in the crosshairs of US-China trade tensions, with Merck downgrading its life science revenue projections for 2025 amid tariff threats. Meanwhile, its semiconductor business is booming amid increased demand from the artificial intelligence industry, a trend that electronics specialist Beckmann will hope to continue.
Finally, Takeda’s choice to replace retiring President Christophe Weber reflects the Japanese firm’s increased emphasis on the US market. Julie Kim most recently served for three and a half years as head of the company’s US business unit, having previously headed up global plasma operations. She has a long runway to becoming CEO, from the announcement in January 2025 to taking up the role in June 2026.
The most notable event of Weber’s decade-long tenure as Takeda CEO was the USD 62 billion acquisition of Shire in January 2019. One of the largest biopharma deals in history and Japan’s largest-ever foreign takeover, it transformed Takeda into the world’s leading rare disease company overnight and marked its evolution into a diversified multinational. Kim joined Takeda as part of this deal, which has not been without teething problems in terms of cost burden and integration challenges.
Her task now will be building on the successes of the company’s “Growth & Launch” products, which now account for nearly 50 percent of revenues as some of its key legacy products go off-patent, particularly in the US.
