Merck & Co., Inc. chief financial officer Robert Davis will succeed Kenneth Frazier as CEO effective on 30 June, ushering in a new era for the pharmaceutical giant as it builds out a growth strategy to augment the cancer powerhouse Keytruda (pembrolizumab). As the CEO of Merck & Co. for a decade, Frazier shaped the company from a primary care specialist to an unexpected oncology leader at the forefront of the immuno-oncology frontier.
The company announced the leadership transition on 4 February alongside its fourth quarter/full-year 2020 sales and earnings release. A transition was not unexpected, given Frazier's lengthy tenure at the helm, but it also comes amid a changing of the guard in Merck's top R&D leadership. Merck Research Laboratories President Dean Li only replaced Roger Perlmutter in the role at the beginning of the year
Filling the shoes of an industry leader like Frazier won't be easy. He has a long legacy at Merck & Co., even before the arrival of Keytruda and before he took the chief executive spot. Frazier saw the company through one of its roughest periods when he was chief counsel during the Vioxx safety scandal, and served as one of the architects behind the Schering-Plough mega-merger in 2009 when he was president of Merck & Co.'s global human health division. Frazier became CEO of Merck & Co. in 2010, succeeding Richard Clark
