Roche Holding AG Chief Executive Severin Schwan is to step down in March following a 15-year tenure marked by the marriage of the Swiss healthcare giant and California’s Genentech, the blockbuster success of three cancer drugs and the challenge of replacing them when lower-cost competition arrived.
Mr. Schwan also presided over setbacks in his long run at the top of the company. Genentech lost a rare challenge to U.S. regulators over the revocation of approval for a breast cancer treatment in 2011. The next year, he failed in an high-profile takeover attempt for a gene-sequencing company.
