Hours af­ter an­oth­er FDA de­lay, Io­vance CEO re­signs — shares plum­met

Here’s a good way to alarm in­vestors: an­nounce that the ap­pli­ca­tion for ap­proval would be de­layed by an­oth­er year and then, less than 20 hours lat­er, qui­et­ly dis­close that your CEO of 5 years is abrupt­ly de­part­ing.

Io­vance re­vealed in an SEC fil­ing Wednes­day morn­ing that CEO Maria Fardis had in­formed the board yes­ter­day that she would re­sign from the com­pa­ny “to pur­sue oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties.” The com­pa­ny did not have a re­place­ment lined up, but said they will be­gin a search “im­me­di­ate­ly” while gen­er­al coun­sel Fred­er­ick Vogt stepped up as in­ter­im chief.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER