Switzerland's Tecan has appointed a new CEO, four months after the abrupt departure of Emile Sutcliffe. The new CEO is Aitor Galdos, who will take over the helm of Tecan on 1 November.
Sutcliffe left the company after a difficult first quarter which saw Tecan's sales and profits slump. No reason was given for his departure; a Tecan statement at the time noted simply that "it has been agreed that silence be maintained" regarding the reasons for Sutcliffe's leaving.
Tecan has been under some pressure of late, with sales and profits slumping in the first quarter of this year and staging only a minor recovery in the second. The primary problem lies in the firm's diagnostics business, which has seen its sales slide and has held back growth in Tecan's biopharma division.
Galdos joins Tecan from the VP Bank in Vaduz, where he works as head of group marketing and business development and is in charge of analysing all corporate activities and implementing new processes.
Mike Baronian, the chairman of Tecan's board of directors and interim CEO since Sutcliffe's departure, welcomed Galdos' appointment, saying that he would help the firm in its current concentration on core competencies - the production of high-precision platforms for medical laboratory instruments.
"Tecan has highly qualified specialists, superior products and an excellent competitive position," Galdos said.