Brent Saunders

Last updated
Brent Saunders
Alma materBachelor's, University of Pittsburgh [1]
MBA, Temple University [1]
JD, Temple University [1]
OccupationsChairman and CEO of Bausch + Lomb
Founder of Vesper Healthcare Acquisition [2]
Chairman of The Beauty Health Company [3]
Chairman of Hugel America [4]
Known forBiopharma executive, entrepreneur [5]

Brent Saunders (born 1970) is an American biopharma executive and entrepreneur who is the chairman and CEO of the health company Bausch & Lomb. He helped lead various mergers and acquisitions, including the mergers between Merck and Schering-Plough, the acquisition of Bausch + Lomb by Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and the $63 billion acquisition of Allergan by Abbvie. [6] [7] He founded the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Vesper Healthcare Acquisition. [2] Saunders is also executive chairman of medical aesthetics companies The Beauty Health Company and Hugel America. [3] [4]

Contents

Early life and education

Saunders was born in 1970 to Charles and Sheila Saunders, a urologist and social worker. [1] [6] He grew up in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, with a twin brother, Wayne, and sister Reed, [1] and graduated from Parkland High School in South Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania in 1988. [1] [8]

He attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he was president of the student government board, [1] and graduated in 1992 with a bachelor's degree in economics and East Asian studies. [1] [9] In 1996, he received MBA and J.D. degrees from Temple University in Philadelphia. [1] [9]

Career

In 1996, while attending law school, Saunders started working part-time at Jefferson Health as a compliance officer. [1]

In 2000, Saunders joined PricewaterhouseCoopers as a healthcare compliance manager, and became partner and head of the firm's compliance business advisory services group. [1] In October 2003, Saunders was hired as senior vice president of global compliance and business practices at Schering-Plough, a pharmaceutical company. [1] In mid-2007, he became president of consumer health care at Schering-Plough, with responsibility for a business unit of products including Coppertone, Dr. Scholl's, and Claritin. [1] In 2009, Saunders led the integration team of Schering-Plough's merger with Merck. [7]

In 2010, Saunders was appointed chief executive officer of Bausch & Lomb, an eye health company. [10] That year, he was also appointed to the Federal Reserve advisory board. [11] In 2013, as CEO of Bausch + Lomb, he oversaw its acquisition by Valeant Pharmaceuticals, now known as Bausch Health, for $8.7 billion. [7] [12] He joined Valeant in an advisory role to assist with the transition. [13] In October, Saunders joined pharmaceutical company Forest Laboratories as CEO. [14] Ten months later, Saunders was named chief executive officer of Actavis, a pharmaceutical company, after the company acquired Forest Laboratories. [15] In November 2014, Saunders negotiated Actavis' merger with Allergan, a pharmaceutical company, for a reported $70.5 billion. [1] The new combined company took the Allergan name. [16]

Saunders appeared on the February 2015 cover of Forbes magazine, where he was named "Wall Street's Drug Dealer". [6] In May 2019, Saunders survived a proposal brought by hedge fund Appaloosa Management to split Allergan's chairman and CEO roles. [17] In June, pharmaceutical company Abbvie acquired Allergan for $63 billion. [18]

In June 2020, Saunders joined the board of BridgeBio Pharma, a company founded in 2019. [19] In September, Saunders’ special-purpose acquisition company Vesper Healthcare Acquisition publicly launched, and raised $400 million. [2] Filings indicated that Saunders owned 20% of the company after the SPAC sale. [2] By December, Saunders made his first deal with Vesper, acquiring HydraFacial, a beauty treatment company, for $1.1 billion. [7] Vesper's HydraFacial deal closed in May 2021, and the new company was renamed The Beauty Health Company, with Saunders taking the role of executive chairman. [3] He also served as interim CEO until February 2022. [20]

In June 2022, Saunders was named to the board of medical aesthetics company Hugel America, an affiliate of South Korea-based Hugel Inc. [4]

In March 2023, Saunders returned to Bausch + Lomb as CEO and chairman. [21] [12] In June, Saunders signed his first deal as CEO, purchasing dry eye drug Xiidra from Novartis for $1.75 billion. [22]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "Brent Saunders, Parkland grad, is the Lehigh Valley's $150 billion dealmaker". The Morning Call. October 19, 2015. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Brent Saunders rides $400M wave to the top of the SPAC boom". Endpoints News. September 30, 2020. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 "HydraFacial merges with Vesper Healthcare to form new, publicly traded company based in Long Beach". Long Beach Business Journal. May 7, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 "Ex-Allergan CEO Joins Parent of Botox Rival". Orange County Business Journal. June 21, 2022. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  5. ↑ "Allergan: Pharma's Biggest Dealmaker Is On The Hunt Again". Forbes. July 27, 2015. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 "This Giant Drug Firm Won't Invent Medicines. Investors Are Cheering". Forbes. March 21, 2011. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Back to beauty: Former Allergan chief Saunders scoops up aesthetics company in $1.1B deal". Fierce Pharma. December 9, 2020. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  8. ↑ Crow, David (17 May 2015). "The Botox initiation of Brent Saunders, Actavis chief executive". Financial Times.
  9. 1 2 "Archive Buttons | Free Paywall Remover". www.archivebuttons.com. Retrieved 2024-12-21.
  10. ↑ "Brent Saunders, Bausch & Lomb CEO: The Eyes Have It". Chief Executive. March 21, 2011. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  11. ↑ "Bausch & Lomb Brent Saunders Named to New York's Federal Reserve Regional Advisory Board".
  12. 1 2 Dunleavy, Kevin (15 February 2013). "10 years after selling Bausch + Lomb, controversial dealmaker Brent Saunders is back as CEO". Fierce Pharma.
  13. ↑ "Drugmaker Valeant to buy Bausch & Lomb for $8.7 billion". Reuters. March 21, 2011. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  14. ↑ "Forest Labs names ex-Bausch & Lomb head Brent Saunders as CEO". Reuters. September 10, 2013. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  15. ↑ "Forest Labs' Saunders to Head Actavis When Deal Closes". Wall Street Journal. May 14, 2014. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  16. ↑ "Allergan CEO Saunders puts on chairman's cap as Actavis architect Bisaro exits". Fierce Pharma. October 27, 2016. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  17. ↑ "Allergan CEO Saunders gets to keep chairmanship after failed investor campaign". Fierce Pharma. May 1, 2019. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  18. ↑ "AbbVie, nearing the end of Humira's historic run, scoops up a struggling Allergan for $63B". Fierce Pharma. June 25, 2019. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  19. ↑ "Saunders finds life after Allergan on board at newly IPO'ed BridgeBio". Fierce Pharma. June 24, 2020. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  20. ↑ "Beauty Health Names Andrew Stanleick CEO". Los Angeles Business Journal. January 21, 2022. Retrieved July 11, 2022.
  21. ↑ "Brent Saunders to return as Bausch + Lomb CEO". February 15, 2023 – via www.reuters.com.
  22. ↑ Hopkins, Jared S. (June 30, 2023). "Bausch + Lomb's CEO Inks First Big Deal Since Return". Wall Street Journal– via www.wsj.com.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.