Early this month, medtech giant Baxter International revealed its plan to spin off its largest unit, kidney care, and indicated it was likely to do the same with some of its other business sectors. In the same release, the Illinois-based company also said it had accepted the resignation of Chief Operating Officer Giuseppe Accogli.
Less than four weeks later, Accogli has landed a new job as group CEO of Italy’s Chiesi Farmaceutici, which made news recently with its $1.48 billion acquisition of rare disease specialist Amryt.
With his new post, Accogli not only gets a chance to return to his native country, he moves from a company that is divesting to one seeking to grow aggressively.
Meanwhile, with Chiesi's buy of Amryt, the Italian company takes over a global firm with three FDA-approved drugs—Juxtapid for homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, Myalept for lipodystrophy and Mycapssa for acromegaly—plus another, Filsuvez, which was approved in Europe last year.
Family-owned Chiesi operates in 30 countries and employs more than 6,000 people. In addition to its headquarters in Parma, Italy, the company has R&D hubs in the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Sweden and China.
Accogli arrives after 15 years at Baxter, where he worked his way up the ladder in the company’s renal sector. Before that, he was at Italian medtechs Medtronic and Tyco Healthcare (then Covidien). His background spans sales, marketing, product innovation, R&D and M&A, with a focus on the U.S. and European markets, the company said.
Accogli succeeds Ugo Di Francesco, who took over as CEO in 2011 and served through the end of last year. Through his tenure, Chiesi grew each year from 1 billion euros in 2010 to 2.4 billion euros in 2021.
Marco Vecchia, who served as acting CEO after the departure of Di Francesco, returns to his role as chief of legal and corporate affairs, Chiesi said.