CSL investors lost another round of value in February after Dr Paul McKenzie resigned abruptly the day before the company’s half-year results announcement, setting off chaotic trading that deepened a csl share price decline already measured in tens of billions of dollars. The $80 billion market colossus was left nursing fresh losses after CSL disclosed his retirement without first placing the stock in a trading halt.

The company was already under pressure before that day. CSL shares had fallen from $270 to $180 before February, and investors had absorbed tens of billions of dollars in losses before the year even began, after a cycle of downgrades that started in August last year. The February drop added billions more.

Brian McNamee, CSL’s chairman, tried to steady nerves by insisting the business had not changed at its core. “I can assure you, this is still a very strong organisation. It generates very strong cash flows as a business. It has significant unmet medical needs in much of its portfolio,” he said. He also said, “Our fundamentals haven’t changed, and I think the outlook for our core products haven’t changed.”

McNamee said the board and McKenzie had both recognised the executive did not have the skills they wanted for CSL’s next phase. “We, in discussion with Paul, recognised he didn’t have the skills that we wanted for the future,” he said, adding that urgency was needed to find the right chief executive for the growth path ahead. CSL plans to parachute company veteran Gordon Naylor into the transition. Naylor had previously helped shape the group into a global giant, but the board may not find a permanent replacement until next year.

The upheaval lands against a wider slide in the share price tied to Trump’s war on big pharma’s pricing power in the US, along with weakness on the vaccine front from COVID fatigue and vaccine scepticism linked to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s role as health secretary. McKenzie had already tried to tackle performance problems last year by cutting staff and consolidating CSL’s research and development operations, while the ASX extended the market trading window by 10 minutes. Even with those moves, the company’s investors remain focused on whether CSL can turn a bruising stretch into a stable handover.