Read is ready but...

The company announced Dec. 5 that Kindler is stepping down and is being replaced by Ian Read, 57, the global head of pharmaceuticals.

Curiosity rises whenever there is a change in the status of one of Kalamazoo County’s top employers — and with good reason. This area has experienced a lot of changes over the years in the local pharmaceutical industry with mergers and acquisitions, cuts and realignments involving The Upjohn Company, Pharmacia and, most recently, Pfizer.

Pfizer employs about 3,000 people in the area and the company’s largest manufacturing facility is in Portage. So it’s understandable that local interest intensifies when the chief operating officer of such an enterprise resigns, citing fatigue, as Kindler did.

A few recent developments may offer some insight.

First, it has only been a little more than a year since the company acquired rival drugmaker Wyeth, and the consolidations and plant realignments resulting from that deal are still in the works. However, as the Kalamazoo Gazette reported in May, those changes do not appear to bode ill for local manufacturing or research operations now. In fact, the animal medicine research operations near Richland are growing, and the company has just announced construction of a major new facility there.

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It’s also worth noting that Kindler did not have a research or manufacturing background with the company. He was an attorney who was an executive for McDonald’s Corp. and a director of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve before he joined Pfizer.

His successor, on the other hand, is directly involved in the pharmaceutical side of the company. Read has worked at Pfizer for more than 30 years in a variety of positions and countries. The fact that he was chosen to lead Pfizer could signal some of the company’s plans going forward. Will it mean the company will invest more in pharmaceutical research and development? Or will it become more active in acquiring smaller companies with promising new drugs? Or both?

Analysts call Read a “safe” choice. Their response to his selection was viewed as likely beneficial to the company because of his extensive experience with Pfizer’s key operations.

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Editorial: Changes in leadership at Pfizer are bound to raise questions in Kalamazoo

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