A year in­to Al­bert Bourla’s reign, Ian Read leaves all of Pfiz­er in the new CEO’s con­trol

Ian Read is of­fi­cial­ly bow­ing out of Pfiz­er.

Af­ter a brief stint as ex­ec­u­tive chair­man — su­per­vis­ing his suc­ces­sor Al­bert Bourla’s first year as CEO — Read is re­tir­ing at the end of the year and turn­ing over the chair­man role to Bourla. De­cem­ber 31, 2019 will mark the con­clu­sion of Read’s 41 years at the phar­ma gi­ant $PFE.

Bourla is gath­er­ing the reins amid a flur­ry of ac­tion to re­shape Pfiz­er in­to a “small­er, more fo­cused, sci­ence-based com­pa­ny with a sin­gu­lar fo­cus on in­no­v­a­tive phar­ma.” Weeks ago the com­pa­ny re­vealed plans to com­bine its off-patent drug busi­ness, Up­john, with My­lan — fol­low­ing an ear­li­er deal to spin off its con­sumer health unit in­to a joint ven­ture with Glax­o­SmithK­line.

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