Amgen announced that Richard Nanula has resigned as executive vice president and chief financial officer, saying he is leaving “to pursue other opportunities.” Nanula is being replaced by Robert Bradway, who will be responsible for Amgen’s finance, strategy, and investor relations operations.
Amgen said Nanula will remain at the company for the next 90 days to assist in the transition. However, the embattled biotech company quickly removed his name and biography from its website. Nanula joined Amgen as executive vice president and member of its executive committee in May 2001 and became the company’s CFO in August of that year. He began his career with the Walt Disney Co., where he held a number of executive positions over 12 years, including senior executive vice president, CFO, and president of Disney Stores Worldwide.
He served as chairman and chief executive officer at Broadband Sports Inc., an internet media company, from 1999 until 2001, and he served as president and chief operating officer for Starwood Hotels and Resorts in New York from 1998 until 1999. Nanula has also been a director of Boeing since 2005, and serves on the aircraft maker’s audit committee and finance committee.
Bradway joined Amgen in 2006 as vice president, Operations Strategy. Prior to joining the company, he spent 18 years at Morgan Stanley in New York and London, where he was a managing director of investment banking. He is credited with leading Morgan Stanley’s healthcare practice in Europe for several years.
Amgen has been suffering from product development setbacks and pressure to contain the costs of its expensive drugs, reports the Associated Press. It is also target of an informal Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into its handling of a failed Dutch study used to test its drug Aranesp in patients with anemia caused by cancer. The wire service pointed out that Amgen didn’t publicly disclose its failure until February even though the study was stopped in December.