Friday, April 5, 2013

UPDATED: Dr. Tom "TEN Ways To Be Paid" Koestler -- Thanks, Anon.!

The last few times we mentioned Dr. Koestler's name -- post the Schering-Plough bust-up (late 2010 and early 2011) -- he was a board member at Momenta, a board observer (whatever that might mean!) at Pearl Therapeutics, and an executive-in-residence at Vatera Holdings.

In the intervening almost two and a half years, he's been adding titles a-go-go. He's now a full executive at Vatera, on the full boards of behemoth Norvo-Nordisk AB, Pearl, ImmusanT, Inc. and Arisaph Pharmaceuticals. In addition, Tom was just named chairman of the board of Rib-X Pharmaceuticals (see press release; quoted below). UPDATE: He is also a paid advisor at RPS Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., it would seem.

But the one role (of his manifold duties) I find most fascinating -- by far -- is that he now ALSO serves as Chairman of Bausch + Lomb's Scientific Advisory Board.

Of course, he and "Fast Fred" Hassan go all the way back to the early 1990s -- at Pharmacia (yes -- that very same sordid back-story). In any event, here's a bit from the press-release linked above:
. . . .Dr. Koestler, an Executive Director of Vatera Holdings LLC, joined the Rib-X Board in 2012. In his nearly 30-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Koestler established a track record of building high-performance teams that drove global success in research and development. Most recently, he served as Executive Vice President of Schering-Plough Corporation and President of Schering-Plough Research Institute (SPRI), the pharmaceutical Research and Development arm of Schering-Plough Corporation. Under his leadership, the company developed an industry-leading pipeline(?) that contributed to the turnaround of the business. Dr. Koestler’s accomplishments include over 80 product approvals including over 30 New Molecular Entities/BLAs. Before joining Schering-Plough, Dr. Koestler was Senior Vice President and Head of Global Regulatory Affairs for Pharmacia Corporation. Prior to joining Pharmacia, he was Senior Vice President and Global Head, Drug Regulatory Affairs, Compliance Assurance, Clinical Safety and Epidemiology for Novartis. Before that appointment, he was Senior Director, Drug Regulatory Affairs, at Ortho McNeil and a Director of Regulatory Affairs at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Westwood Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Koestler is also a member of the Board of Directors of Novo Nordisk A/S, Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., Pearl Therapeutics Inc., ImmusanT Inc., and Arisaph Pharmaceuticals Inc. Dr. Koestler also chairs the Scientific Advisory Board of Bausch & Lomb. . . .
So there you have an update on Dr. Thomas "TENNine-Ways To Be Paid" Koestler. That is quite a bit of Hassan-connectedness -- especially the seat as the chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of B + L -- and it contiues, even to this day. I have to wonder whether these manifold duties create conflicts of interest (the likes of which he is likely only dimly aware). Or maybe I'm just jealous -- "only in America," right?


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Forbes has his 2009 salary pegged at 24M. but that is different than severance. 600K for part time work at novo in 2011 isn't too shabby though. http://www.forbes.com/profile/thomas-koestler/

campaignmoney.com has him down for Romney recently, but democrats in 2008.
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/thomas-koestler.asp?cycle=12

Who's next? where is veltri?

Condor said...

Thanks so much Anon.

We will take a look at Enrico Veltri on some future slow news Friday.

The primary reason the Koestler separation pay was over $50 million (which BTW includes the $24 million you mention) is that the change of control payment cliff-vested all the equity he ever was awarded. If he waited more than six months, post Novemeber 2009 to sell it, and thus catch capital gains on it all (as well as benefit from a rising New Merck NYSE price), his take was over $54 million. See my methods, here and here.

I never posted Koestler's individual spreadsheet, but I created it by substituting his values of equity awards into the original Hassan spreadsheet.

If you'd like, I'll add Koestler's spreadsheet as a footnote to the above post, then you can download it -- and tweak it for various NYSE price values, yourself. It is all driven off his SEC Form 4 filings.

Namaste, Anon.!

Anonymous said...

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