With some 12 years as CEO under his belt, Bavarian Nordic’s Paul Chaplin is telegraphing his exit from the Denmark-based vaccine maker. The planned move comes shortly after another high-profile exit at the company, with Bavarian Nordic’s board chair departing in November on the heels of a failed private equity takeover bid.
Chaplin, who joined Bavarian Nordic in 1999 and became CEO in 2014, said in a statement Monday that he’s stepping down because his family wants to return to Australia. In a March 2 press release, Bavarian Nordic noted that its board has entered into an agreement with the outgoing CEO, who will continue in his role through 2026 or until a replacement has been selected.
Bavarian Nordic confirmed that its board of directors has started looking for a new chief executive. The company did not elaborate on its search criteria or state whether it’s looking internally or externally for Chaplin’s successor.
“I have truly enjoyed the experiences and professional challenges over nearly three decades and have had the privilege of leading many talented colleagues towards a shared mission of improving and saving lives,” Chaplin said in a statement. “We have achieved a lot and created a strong foundation for the future of the company.”
Under Chaplin’s stewardship, Bavarian Nordic has blossomed from a small, research-based company into a large vaccine manufacturer operating in multiple markets, with some of its recent success attributable to its smallpox and mpox vaccine Jynneos.
Amid a major global outbreak of mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) in 2022, Jynneos became an important tool in the prevention armamentarium both in the U.S. and abroad.
Bavarian Nordic also highlighted its 2023 acquisition of Emergent BioSolutions’ travel vaccine portfolio under Chaplin’s lead, which most notably led to an eventual FDA approval for chikungunya virus vaccine Vimkunya.
While Bavarian Nordic was second to market with its chikungunya vaccine behind Valneva’s rival product Ixchiq, Valneva in January withdrew its shot in the U.S. following a suspension of its approval last summer and a new FDA probe into reported serious adverse events.
Chaplin had recently hoped that a buyout of Bavarian Nordic would provide the vaccine maker with the extra cash needed to realize its full potential, but the deal—which would have tendered the purchase of Bavarian Nordic by a private equity consortium—sputtered out in November when it failed to muster enough support from shareholders.
Speaking to Bloomberg last August, well before the potential purchase fell through, Chaplin said the private equity firms—Nordic Capital and Permira—were prepared to invest in Bavarian Nordic’s “unloved” portfolio and transform its assets into growth drivers.
“They know that significant additional investments are going to be required,” he said at the time. “And that’s the rationale that we’ve all bought into.”
But it ultimately was his family’s desire to move that prompted Chaplin’s departure, the CEO said in an interview with MedWatch Monday, denying that his exit is linked to the ill-fated acquisition. Chaplin added that Bavarian Nordic’s board “wanted me to stay.”
The acquisition misfire did directly inform the departure of Bavarian Nordic’s former board chair, Luc Debruyne, late last year, who said in November that he would step down to “enable the board of Bavarian Nordic to focus on the company’s next phase of development.” The board’s vice chair Anne Louise Eberhard was tapped to replace Debruyne.