Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler announcement shock retirement for ' 24/7' responsibilities
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Mr Kindler, who has been chief executive since 2006, said that "the combination of meeting the requirements of our many stakeholders around the world and the 24/7 nature of my responsibilities, has made this period extremely demanding on me personally".
He will be succeeded by Ian C Read, who at 57 is two years older than Mr Kindler and has headed Pfizer's biopharmaceuticals business for the past four years.
Mr Kindler faced a challenging time at the top of Pfizer, taking over shortly before the company stopped work on the development of the cholesterol drug Torcetrapib. The company, which has 4,500 employees in the UK, had hoped that the drug would be another blockbuster and help compensate for next year's loss of patent protection on Lipitor in the US. Shares in Pfizer, which were up 18 cents at $16.90 in early afternoon trading in New York, slumped 35pc during Mr Kindler's tenure.
"The departure is sudden but I doubt there was one event per se that caused Mr Kindler's retirement," said Tim Anderson, an analyst at Sanford C Bernstein.
Like much of corporate America since the financial crisis, Pfizer has cut costs in an effort to help sustain profits. Under Mr Kindler stewardship, the company has shed more than 14,000 jobs, as well as closing manufacturing plants. The company also paid $68bn (￡43bn) for rival Wyeth last year in an effort to invigorate its pipeline of new products.
Barbara Ryan, who covers the company for Deutsche Bank, said that Mr Kindler should be credited with "digging Pfizer out of a hole". However, his retirement "suggests that Pfizer's leadership, including Mr Kindler, believe it was best for him to move on now in a way that would not jeopardise or disrupt what he was able to achieve strategically over the past four years".
Analysts say the challenge facing Mr Read, who has been with Pfizer since 1978 after joining its accounts department, is to find new, innovative medicines as well as push the company more aggressively into emerging markets.
Current drugs in development include tasocitinib for rheumatoid arthritis and crizotinib, which is designed to treat lung cancer.
The geographical priorities, again echoing those of many of America's biggest companies, should be China, India, Brazil and Latin America, said analysts at Credit Agricole. That's a long way from Pfizer's roots, which lay in the New York borough of Brooklyn, where two cousins – Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart – founded the company in 1849.
Mr Read welcomed the opportunity to lead a company on the "front lines of medical innovation".
