Memorial Sloan Kettering Chief resigns from MSD board

Dr Craig Thompson, Chief Executive of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), the renowned non-profit treatment and research institution based in New York City, has announced he will resign from the boards of MSD and another industry firm, bringing the former’s board down to 12 directors.

Dr Thompson had served the pharma company as a board member since 2008, and took home $300,000 in compensation for his service in 2017.

He has also served as a board member for publicly traded R&D service firm Charles River Laboratories since 2013; for this role, he also received $70,000 in cash and $215,050 in stock in the same year.

These payments are on top of his compensation from MSKCC, an annual sum which reached $6.7 million in 2016. MSKCC confirmed that the compensation Dr Thompson awarded from both of his board roles this year will be deferred for seven years, when he is 72.

The news follows the resignation last month of the centre’s Chief Medical Officer Jose Baselga after it was revealed that he had payments to healthcare firms to the tune of millions of dollars in his research articles. This corruption was unveiled through an investigation by The New York Times and ProPublica. Dr Thompson acknowledged his failure to effectively control and prevent such insider deals in a meeting with hospital staff, preceding his resignation.

"I believe this is the right decision for Memorial Sloan Kettering and will allow me to redouble my focus on MSK priorities: quality patient care, faculty, scientists and staff," Dr Thompson commented.

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