There is much ado about Marc Casper. By all accounts, the CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific is whip-smart and has a keen eye for what’s happening next in the biotech business but may leave something to be desired when it comes to up-keeping employee morale. Overall, however, under his stewardship the company continues to thrive.
Casper earned an MBA graduating with high distinction from Harvard Business School and began his career as a strategy consultant with Bain & Company. He moved on to Bain Capital, a private equity firm with investments spanning several industries, shortly thereafter. “I thought it’d be a good way to learn the business from the inside,” Casper said in a 2015 interview.
Never meant to be his final career stop, he transitioned out of private equity and served in several leadership positions before joining Thermo Electron as president of life sciences in 2001. It didn’t take Casper long to work his way up through the ranks, including a promotion to senior vice president in 2003 and then head of all operating divisions in 2005. When Thermo Electron merged with another company to create Thermo Fisher Scientific (TFS) in 2006, Casper was named president of analytical technologies and in 2008, became chief operating officer.
One does not become the leader of an $89 billion life sciences company without ruffling a few feathers, however, and Casper is no exception. In his tenure as CEO, Casper has overseen a number of mergers and acquisitions and those that felt the bite of those buyouts took to Indeed.com with their tales of woe. Concerns raised about staff cuts, quality compromises and inflated executive bonuses have done little to inspire confidence in some of the employees still hanging onto their TSF careers.
As one of the highest paid CEOs in the industry, Caspers’ total compensation for 2017 was approximately $22 million. He’s drawn criticism for his higher-than-average earnings but in defense of Casper’s attractive recompense, Thermo Fisher Scientific has done very well over the last few years. Revenue growth for 2018 grew 16 percent with a total of $24 billion reported for the full year.
The company recently acquired Brammer BioSciences for $1.7 billion and TFS stocks upticked 1.8 percent after the announcement, and 20 percent overall in 2019. Casper sees Brammer as a complement to the company’s existing pharmaceutical offerings. “Brammer Bio will be an exciting addition to our pharma services business and will further strengthen Thermo Fishers’ leadership in serving pharma and biotech customers,” said Casper.
“Gene therapy is an area of increasing focus for our customers and is fast-evolving given its potential to treat a range of genetic disorders. The combination of Brammer Bio’s viral vector capabilities with our GMP production expertise and proprietary bioprocessing and cell culture technologies uniquely positions us to partner with our customers to drive the evolution of this fast-growing market. The transaction is perfectly aligned with our mission to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer.”
