Lonza CEO Marc Funk departs unexpectedly

CEO Marc Funk is leaving Lonza for personal reasons, the company announced Nov. 12. Funk will step down as CEO immediately but stay with the Swiss pharmaceutical services firm until January. Its chairman, Albert Baehny, will become interim CEO until a permanent successor is found. Funk, a lawyer who has been with Lonza since 2009, had been CEO only since March. He took over from Richard Ridinger, who had been at the helm for about 7 years and oversaw the company’s 2016 acquisition of the drug-delivery firm Capsugel for $5.5 billion. Funk had previously led Lonza Pharma & Biotech, a core business that had about $3.1 billion in sales last year, a 14% increase over 2017. There were no signs of deteriorating performance at Lonza under Funk’s leadership: at midyear, the company reported that overall sales were up 6.4% from the same period a year earlier. One lagging business—specialty ingredients, a maker of microbial control products—had been carved out as an independent operation that could easily be sold.