Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ Jeffrey Leiden to step aside as CEO

Vertex Pharmaceuticals will promote Reshma Kewalramani, its chief medical officer, to president and CEO on April 1, the company announced Thursday morning. She will succeed Jeffrey Leiden, who said he would step down as president and CEO after seven years in those roles.

Leiden, who has also served as chairman, will become executive chairman, a position he will hold through the first quarter of 2023.

Kewalramani, 46, will become the first woman to run a large biotechnology firm, a watershed moment for an industry that in 2018 had speak at its largest conference. Expectations are high. Under Leiden’s tenure, Vertex’s share price rose 360% and its sales doubled to $3 billion annually as