Andrew Witty, CEO of United Group, testifies during the Senate Finance Committee hearing entitled “Hacking of the United States Medical Care: Evaluation of the cyber attack of medical care and what follows”, in the Dirksen building in Washington, DC, on May 1, 2024.
Tom Williams | Call Call Call, Inc. | Getty images
Unitedhealth Group On Tuesday he announced the surprise departure of CEO Andrew Witty and suspended his prognosis of 2025, sending actions of the giant of medical care that falls more than 10% in morning trade.
Witty is immediately renouncing “personal reasons,” said the company. He will act as the main advisor of his successor, Stephen Hemsley, who served as CEO of United Group from 2006 to 2017 after joining the company in 1997.
“We are grateful for the Andrew administration of United Group, especially during some of the most challenging moments that any company has faced,” Hemsley said in a statement.
The company said that its decision to withdraw its guide was partly due to the highest medical costs, which dragged other insurance actions. Actions of CVS health more than 4% fell and Elevation health more than 6%fell, while Human It also slid more than 6% and CIGNA lost more than 2%.
Witty became CEO of UnitedHealth in 2021 after previously directing the British pharmaceutical giant Glaxoxosmithkline for almost a decade. Supervised a tumultuous last year for the company, which dealt with government investigations, a historical cyber attack, higher medical costs than expected and the public setback torrent after the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of the Insurance Unit of the United Company Unitedhealthcare.
Witty in December recognized that the United States's health system is “defective” and needs a reform, but also defended UnitedHealthcare.
UnitedHealth Group said Tuesday that he partially suspended the perspectives because the medical costs for the new affiliates in the company's private plans remained higher than expected. The company also said that “the attention activity continued to accelerate while expanding to more types of benefits offers than those seen in the first quarter.”
He arrives only weeks after United Group reduced his annual gains prognosis, warning of elevated medical costs in the so -called Medicare advantage plans. These greatest expenses have pursued the entire insurance industry during the past year as more older people return to hospitals to undergo procedures that had delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as joint and hip replacements.
The company in April also registered its first profit miss since 2008, and the decrease in the resulting actions He deleted almost $ 190 billion in market capitalization at that time.
But investors can welcome the return of Hemsley, who supervised the transformation of the company into a conglomerate of medical care of $ 400 billion that controls everything, from the largest private insurer in the country to one of the largest pharmacy benefits managers, along with groups of doctors and sensitive data of medical care of millions of Americans.
“Unitedhealth Group has enormous opportunities to grow as we continue to help improve medical care and perform our potential and, in doing so, return to our long -term growth target of 13 to 16 percent,” said Hessley.
The company expects to return to growth in 2026, according to the statement.
