Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Chief Executive Resigns From Merck’s Board of Directors

Dr. Craig B. Thompson resigned Tuesday from the board of the drugmaker Merck and another public company as he tries to address staff turmoil in the wake of a crisis over conflicts of interest. 

by Katie Thomas, The New York Times, and Charles Ornstein, ProPublica

This article was produced in partnership with The New York Times.

Dr. Craig B. Thompson, the chief executive of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, said Tuesday that he would resign his seats on the boards of drugmaker Merck and another public company, the latest fallout from a growing institutional reckoning over relationships between cancer center leaders and for-profit health care companies.

Thompson has served on the board of Merck, the maker of the blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda, since 2008. He has been on the board of Charles River Laboratories, a publicly traded company that assists research in early drug development, since 2013.

Thompson received $300,000 in compensation from Merck in 2017, according to company financial filings. He was paid $70,000 in cash by Charles River in 2017, plus $215,050 in stock.

Click here for the full announcement.

Source: ProPublica