Biotech giant posts profit slump after CEO’s shock move
Australia’s largest biopharmaceutical company has reported a huge drop in interim profit less than a day after its chief executive’s sudden retirement.
CSL’s first-half net profit fell 81 per cent to US$401 million after government policy changes, one-off restructuring costs and write-downs severely affected its profitability.
Excluding these impacts, the healthcare giant’s underlying bottom line fell seven percent to $1.9 billion in the six months ended Dec. 31.
“We are clearly unhappy with our performance and have implemented a number of initiatives to deliver stronger growth going forward,” Ken Lim, CSL’s chief financial officer, said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We have an ambitious growth plan in the second half, driven by immunoglobulin, albumin and our newly launched products.”
Australia-based CSL maintained its guidance of full-year revenue growth of between two per cent and three per cent, with underlying net profit rising by four to seven per cent.
As the Australian stock market closed on Tuesday, CSL, which makes vaccines and blood plasma-derived treatments, suddenly announced that CEO Paul McKenzie had resigned.
“When the board recently sat down and looked at our business and where we need to go in the future, we realized in our conversations with Paul that he didn’t have the skills we wanted for the future,” chairman Brian McNamee told analysts.
“That’s why we discussed the question of his retirement.
“We need new and broader skills to improve commercial performance and also expand our pipeline activities.”
Former CSL chief executive Gordon Naylor, who is a non-executive director of the company, has been appointed as interim CEO and managing director.
CSL cut its 2025/26 earnings forecast in October due to falling vaccination rates in the US and lower demand for the blood protein albumin from China.
Its shares dumped in the final minutes of trading following the announcement on Tuesday, falling five percent to $171.39, marking a decline of 36.6 percent over the past 12 months.
Shares tumbled in late September after President Donald Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on drug imports if companies did not establish manufacturing facilities in the United States.
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