Long-time Merck executive Ken Frazier, whose leadership helped bring the drugmaker one of the most lucrative medicines in history and who is one of the few remaining Black CEOs of a major corporation, is retiring.

Frazier, Merck’s CEO since early 2011 and an advocate for minority advancement who took on then-President Trump’s tacit support of white supremacists, will retire in July.

Frazier, 66, will be replaced by Rob Davis, the chief financial officer, the company said on Thursday as it announced quarterly financial results. Frazier will become executive chairman of the board during a transition period. The change comes just months after Dr. Dean Li took over as head of Merck’s research and development.

Also read: Three CEOs resign from Trump council over Charlottesville

Frazier joined Merck, now based in Kenilworth, New Jersey, in 1992 as general counsel to one of Merck’s pharmaceutical businesses and worked his way up to the top job. He is one of the few Black CEOs at the head of a Fortune 500 company.

Last month, when Walgreens named Roz Brewer as its new CEO, there were four. With Frazier’s departure, that number is back down to three.

Frazier clashed with then-President Donald Trump over his refusal to condemn violence by the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, saying, “America’s leaders must honour our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy.” He stepped down from the president’s manufacturing council and was attacked repeatedly by Trump on Twitter the same day. Other executives followed and the council was quickly disbanded.

Frazier spoke out publicly about inequality in the US again last year during the protests that followed the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. Frazier said it could just as easily have been him.

Frazier, a social justice advocate who has won awards from the NAACP and the National Minority Quality Forum, co-founded OneTen, a coalition of organisations committed to training and promoting one million Black Americans into family-sustaining jobs.

A Harvard-trained lawyer who grew up in a poor, rough Philadelphia neighbourhood, Frazier was instrumental in successfully defending Merck against an avalanche of lawsuits after its 2004 recall of painkiller Vioxx for causing heart attacks and strokes.

He also helped orchestrate arguably the best deal Merck ever made, its 2009 mega-acquisition of fellow New Jersey drugmaker Schering-Plough. That deal primarily was targeted at getting the company’s Organon women’s health business, which Merck now is in the process of spinning off to boost growth by both companies after the split.

But Schering-Plough’s research labs had a hidden gem that, once discovered and developed, became the world’s leading cancer immunotherapy drug, Keytruda.

“None of us were smart enough to know what we had in pembrolizumab,” Keytruda’s chemical name, Frazier said during a conference call with analysts on Thursday.

Keytruda now generates $14 billion in annual sales — more than a quarter of Merck’s revenue. It’s approved for dozens of cancer types and patient groups, and currently is being tested in about 1,400 drug studies for additional uses.

More recently, Merck executed about 120 deals last year, including one to buy cancer drug developer VelosBio to further expand Merck’s cancer drug franchise. Both Frazier and Davis said Merck will continue its focus on driving growth through innovative science, rather than megadeals partly meant to cut costs.

Merck, one of the world’s top vaccine makers, recently announced that it was scrapping its two Covid-19 vaccine candidates, but it’s continuing to test a pair of potential treatments for the new coronavirus and could have some study results in the next few months.

Merck reported a fourth-quarter loss of $2.09 billion, or 83 cents per share, partly due to a $2.7-billion charge for buying VelosBio. A year earlier, Merck posted net income of $2.36 billion, or 92 cents per share.

Adjusted income came to $3.4 billion, or $1.32 per share, well short of the $1.38 Wall Street expected.

Overall revenue was $12.51 billion, up 5 per cent from a year earlier, but shy of the $12.67 billion projected by analysts. Keytruda sales came in just under $4 billion in the quarter, up 28 per cent from a year earlier.

In morning trading, Merck shares were down $1.16, or 1.5 per cent, at $76.16. Share prices have more than doubled, and revenue has nearly doubled, under Frazier as CEO.

Merck & Co said it expects earnings per share for 2021 to range between $5.52 and $5.72. It expects revenue for the year of $51.8 billion to $53.8 billion.

However, the company said those estimates will change if the long-planned spinoff of its Organon subsidiary occurs in the second quarter as planned. Merck also said that it expects the pandemic’s impact will cut 2021 revenue by 2 per cent.

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