Hikma hires new Icelandic chief executive to breathe life into the company’s fortunes

Embattled pharmaceuticals giant Hikma, which has been struggling to get a key asthma drug to market, has hired a new chief executive to breathe life into the company’s fortunes.

The London-listed, Jordanian company surprised the City by bringing in Icelandic chief Sigurdur Olafsson, known as Siggi, to start straight away.

Hikma shares climbed 7.7% to 1013p, but the share price had more than halved since the start of January 2017 after a series of gloomy announcements in which the company cut its forecasts for its generics drugs business.

Hikma has been working on a copycat version of GSK’s blockbuster asthma inhaler, Advair, but in May the US Food and Drug Administration withheld approval, saying it needed significant improvements.

Hikma has also been feeling pricing pressure from its US drugs business, where health insurers have been forcing down prices.

Said Darwazah, the son of Hikma’s founder and its current chairman and CEO, moves upstairs to become executive chairman.

Olafsson, who will move to London from the US, was chief executive at Israeli drugs giant Teva's generics arm between 2014 and 2016.