Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Merck "Looks Outside" To Find New Chief Compliance Officer


As a legacy Schering Plough CCO announces his retirement after 35 years (between the various predessessor companies), Chairman & CEO Kenneth Frazier goes outside the organization -- selecting someone he apparently previously worked directly with, when Frazier was the GC, on the Vioxx® matters.

Most recently, Michael J. Holston was the GC at HP. Interesting. Here is the company's presser:

. . . .Holston most recently served as executive vice president and general counsel for Hewlett-Packard Company, where he oversaw compliance, government affairs, privacy, ethics operations and legal affairs. Prior to his role with Hewlett-Packard, Holston was a partner in the litigation practice at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, where he served as external counsel to Merck on matters such as product litigation, government investigations and compliance with healthcare laws and regulations. Before joining Morgan Lewis, he served as a prosecutor in the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. . . .

So it goes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That took a lot longer than most thought. The scuttlebutt at the merger was that Rick left Legacy Merck in a fury when he was passed over to head MMD in favor of Dick Clark (who transitioned to CEO from there). This was allegedly 'proven' by the fact that all units of the company had their compliance areas consolidated under Bowles except MMD. Alleged sour grapes dragging on. I suppose the real proof will be if MMD's compliance folks fold under the new guy. We shall see.

Condor said...

This is great inside stuff -- thanks, Anon.

I'll make it a new post, in a minute -- above.

Look for it. Thanks again -- do stop back!

Namaste