Biogen Loses Top Executive Again, CFO Clancy To Join Alexion

Biogen Inc.’s (NASDAQ:BIIB) chief financial officer (CFO) for the last 10 years, Paul Clancy, is joining Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALXN) next month.

Shares of Alexion were up 3.7% in after-hours trading on Tuesday while Biogen’s shares declined 1.3%. This year, Biogen’s shares have declined 9.9% so far while the Zacks classified Biomed-Genetics industry has gained 2.2%.

Clancy who also held the position of executive vice president, Finance at Biogen will join Alexion on Jul 10 while assuming the role of CFO from Jul 31. He has been with Biogen for 16 years. Prior to that, Clancy served at food/beverage giant PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP) in various executive roles for 13 years. Clancy will replace Dave Anderson, who will become a senior adviser to chief executive officer (CEO) Ludwig Hantson. Alexion had announced Anderson’s resignation last month. Anderson will be with Alexion through end of August.

Biogen also announced that its present chief accounting officer, Greg Covino, will serve as the company’s interim principal financial officer, as the search for a new CFO is conducted.

Several key executives at Biogen have departed over the past couple of years, which has given rise to concerns that the company may be in trouble. These include R&D head, Douglas Williams and HR head Kenneth DiPietro in 2015; chief information officer, Matt Griffiths in 2016 and technology head Adriana Karabout in March this year.

Importantly, George A. Scangos resigned as CEO in Jul 2016. He was replaced by present CEO, Michel Vounatsos, who assumed responsibilities in January.

Meanwhile, Alexion appointed its present CEO Hantson in March this year.

Biogen carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

A better-ranked stock in the large-cap pharma sector is Bayer Aktiengesellschaft (OTC:BAYRY) with a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Shares of Bayer have risen 29.1% this year so far while estimates for both 2017 and 2018 have risen around 2% in the past 30 days.

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