Recruiting an industry veteran to steer the company through its darkest hour of growth pressures, CSL has hired GSK’s Deborah Waterhouse as its next CEO.
Effective Feb. 1, 2027, the longtime head of GSK’s HIV business ViiV Healthcare will take the helm as CSL works through intensifying competition and industry headwinds facing its core blood products franchise.
Waterhouse’s position at ViiV will be filled by Lynn Baxter, currently president of GSK Europe, effective Nov. 1, 2026. Baxter will also inherit Waterhouse’s responsibility as president of GSK Global Health, focusing on infectious diseases that affect low- and middle-income countries.
Waterhouse is stepping into the CSL role after the Australian company fired then-CEO Paul McKenzie, Ph.D., in February amid floundering business performance on both the top and bottom lines. The company is currently led by CSL veteran Gordon Naylor in an interim capacity.
In CSL Behring, which represents the group’s largest department, immunoglobulin pricing pressure in the U.S. and lower albumin use in China as a result of government policy have weighed on its performance.
CSL Vifor, the group’s kidney and rare disease franchise, faces generic competition and U.S. insurance step-edit hurdles in iron supplements, Jefferies analysts pointed out in a May note to clients.
The Australian drugmaker’s vaccines branch, CSL Seqirus, is undergoing a slowdown amid industry-wide market uncertainties caused by turbulent policy landscape in the U.S. CSL has laid out plans to separate its vaccine division via a demerger and independent stock market listing but has delayed the execution until U.S. vaccine market conditions stabilize.
In May, CSL lowered its fiscal year revenue projection and recorded a $5 billion asset impairment charge tied to several late-stage R&D failures and some market-share losses in key markets.
In August, however, CSL managed to inject a dose of confidence in the business, projecting mid-single-digit growth in its next fiscal year ending in June 2027 for CSL Behring.
Alongside its Seqirus spinoff plan last August, CSL unveiled a sweeping restructure that would cut up to 15% of its global workforce and target $500 million to $550 million in annual cost savings.
Waterhouse is now joining the company at a make-or-break moment. A GSK employee of three decades, she has been ViiV’s CEO since April 2017. During her tenure, GSK pioneered the world’s first two-drug regimens for HIV treatment, Juluca and Dovato, as well as the first long-acting HIV medication, Cabenuva, and the first long-acting PrEP option, Apretude.
Buoyed mainly by the long-acting injectables, GSK’s HIV revenue reached 3.9 billion pounds sterling ($5.2 billion) in the first half of 2026, representing 10% growth year over year at constant currencies.
“During her tenure as CEO, ViiV advanced important innovations in HIV treatment and prevention, expanded patient access to medicines, delivered sustained business growth, and strengthened its long-term strategic position,” GSK Chair David Redfern said in an Oct. 21 statement. “As President of GSK Global Health, Deborah also helped advance the organization’s mission to improve health outcomes in underserved communities through strategic partnerships and sustainable approaches.”
For his part, CSL Chair Brian McNamee described Waterhouse as “an outstanding global leader with a proven ability to grow complex businesses.”
“In February this year we said CSL's next chief executive would need the ability to continue the momentum of our commercial performance, renew our pipeline and simplify our operations without losing the science and purpose that built this great company," McNamee said in a statement. "Deborah has done all those things on multiple occasions.
“A world-class and purpose-driven executive, she is the right person to lead CSL in its next chapter of growth. The Board's decision to appoint Deborah was unanimous,” he added.
Before leading ViiV, Waterhouse previously also served as GSK’s general manager for Australia and New Zealand between 2008 and 2012. While keeping her base in the U.S., Waterhouse will spend significant time in Australia, the U.S. and in CSL’s major markets and operational centers, the company said.