Kenneth Frazier

Kenneth Frazier was born on December 17, 1954, in North Philadelphia.[5] His father, Otis, was a janitor.[5][6] Frazier has said Thurgood Marshall was one of his heroes growing up.[7] Frazier's mother died when he was twelve years old.[5] He attended Julia R. Masterman School and Northeast High School.[8] After graduating at age 16, he entered Pennsylvania State University.[7] To make extra money in college, he raised tadpoles and newts and sold them to local stores.[9]

After earning his B.A. from Penn State, Frazier enrolled at Harvard Law School and graduated in 1978 with a J.D.[6][10]

Merck deceptively obtained the formula to Sovaldi over a conference call with Pharmasset.[27][28] In March 2004, Pharmasset was willing to reveal details of its formulas on the call because it was led to believe everyone on the call would be subject to the confidentiality agreement. But the participants included Merck patent attorney Phillippe Durette, who wasn't firewalled and was in a position to turn what he heard into a potential goldmine for Merck. Durette lied about being on the conference call under oath and then Merck's legal team advised him to blame it on poor memory. In a deposition, he repeatedly denied having been on the call. He recanted at trial only after he was confronted with notes taken by a Pharmasset employee during the call, proving that he had participated. At that point, he pleaded a faulty memory. Judge Freeman didn't buy it. "It is overwhelmingly clear...," she ruled, "that Dr. Durette sought at every turn to create the false impression that Merck's conduct was aboveboard." She blamed Merck, which she said "sponsored and encouraged" his conduct, then sought to minimize its importance by attributing the fiasco to "the failed memory of a retired employee." Federal Judge Beth Labson Freeman described the company's behavior as "systematic and outrageous deception in conjunction with unethical business practices and litigation misconduct." That conduct included "lying to Pharmasset, misusing Pharmasset's confidential information, breaching confidentiality and firewall agreements, and lying under oath at deposition and trial."[29][27][28]

In 2017, Merck said it agreed to enter into a settlement and license agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Ono Pharmaceutical Co Ltd to resolve all global patent-infringement litigation related to its cancer drug, Keytruda. Bristol and Ono, which co-developed the first PD-1 antibody called Opdivo, filed the suit against Merck in September 2014, alleging that its sale of Keytruda, also a PD-1 antibody, infringed their patents in markets including the United States, parts of Europe, Australia and Japan. Merck will make an initial payment of $625 million to Bristol and Japan's Ono. The company will also pay a 6.5-percent royalty rate on Keytruda sales from January 2017 to December 2023, and a 2.5-percent rate for the subsequent three years.[30] In the first two months of 2017, sales of Keytruda in the US jumped to roughly $260 million, an 80-percent increase compared with the same period the previous year, according to IMS, a data provider that tracks medicine sales.[31]

Frazier currently serves on the board of directors of Merck (as executive chairman), the National Constitution Center, and Eikon Therapeutics.[32][33] Previously, Frazier served on the board of ExxonMobil from 2009 to 2022 and of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America from 2011 to 2021. Frazier presently is a trustee of Cornerstone Christian Academy in Philadelphia.[34]

In November 2011, the Pennsylvania State University board of trustees appointed Frazier (a trustee) to serve as chairman of a special committee investigation into the child sex abuse scandal involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and allegations of a cover up by university officials.[35][36] Frazier was criticized by Harrisburg attorney William Cluck for his handling of the Sandusky scandal, particularly its decision to rely on the Louis Freeh Report, which found emails suggesting that university leaders, including head football coach Joe Paterno, knew of reports of Sandusky's sex abuse but failed to report it. At a meeting, when Cluck questioned the Freeh report, Frazier directed a fiery criticism at Cluck and Paterno defenders,[37][38] saying, "I believe that we are entitled to look at the words and contemporaneous emails and other documents that draw the conclusions that we need to draw as a university. We are not subject to the criminal beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard [...] If you cared about that, you are one of the few people in this country that looks like you who actually believes the O.J. Simpson not guilty verdict was correct. The fact of the matter is, those documents say what they say, and no amount of hand-waving will ever change what those documents say."[38] Frazier twice apologized for the outburst.[39]

Frazier is a member of the American Law Institute and serves on its council. In May 2013, he delivered the keynote speech at the ALI Annual Dinner.[40]

Frazier was a member of President Trump's American Manufacturing Council. He resigned from the Council on August 14, 2017,[41] following the violent 2017 Unite the Right rally in Virginia. In a statement, Frazier said that he objected to Trump's statement that "many sides" were responsible for violence. Frazier stated, "America's leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal."[42][43]

On June 1, 2020, Frazier gave an interview with CNBC Squawk Box addressing racial tensions and violence following the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was murdered by the Minneapolis police. In the interview, he mentioned that it could have been him in that situation.[44]

In August 2020, Kenneth Frazier and his wife, Andréa Frazier donated $5 million to Jefferson Health to work with Temple University on a new stroke initiative targeting African-American communities.[45][46]

• Raymond Gilmartin

• Appearances on C-SPAN