AstraZeneca confirmed CEO Pascal Soriot will stick around for the company’s earnings report late this month.
Shares of the company have been battered by reports that Soriot will leave the company to take the top post at troubled Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva.
Reuters and other media outlets reported the news. The lack of a firm by AZ that the CEO will jump ship led to a more than $7 billion loss in the company’s stock market value at one point last week.
The French pharma executive has receiv ed decent marks from investors for a restructuring of the company that has included the downsizing of operations in northern Delaware and the loss of a research center that discovered Seroquel. The blockbuster drug is used in the treatment of severe mental illness.
The research site was razed despite efforts by the state to keep the site. AstraZeneca went on to sell its adjoining South Campus near Wilmington to JPMorgan Chase which now operates a technology center.
Research and development was shifted to the Washington, D.C. area, the home of AstraZeneca’s Medimmune subsidiary.
Meanwhile, the company moved its world headquarters from London to a campus in the famous university town of Cambridge.
The Fairfax, DE site remains the North American commercial headquarters for the British-based company. AZ also has a distribution and packaging center south of Newark.
The company has struggled with drugs like Seroquel and heartburn drug Nexium moving off patent and fetching much lower prices.
The company recently announced the sale of its Fairfax site to an investment entity with Wilmington-based Delle Donne and Associates managing the area. In return, AZ will lease a portion of the complex.
Under Soriot, the company sharpened its development focus in areas such as cancer, diabetes and breathing disorders and sold off other products. Investors are currently awaiting results of a major study on a cancer drug.
