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Robert Kramer - Emergent BioSolutions profile dossier

Executive

Type
Person
Role
Executive
Updated

The profile

Emergent BioSolutions chief executive when its Baltimore Bayview plant made COVID-19 vaccine for Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. A House staff report counted nearly 400 million doses destroyed; Kramer told Congress he would not give back his $1.9 million bonus.

Identity and role

Robert G. Kramer Sr. was president and chief executive officer of Emergent BioSolutions, the Gaithersburg, Maryland maker of biodefense vaccines and treatments, through the pandemic. He retired and left the CEO post and the board on June 27, 2023.

Biography / career arc

Kramer joined Emergent "shortly after its inception in 1998," as he put it on retiring. Emergent describes its business as medical countermeasures against anthrax, smallpox, Ebola and other threats, plus opioid-overdose treatment. Plaintiffs' counsel in the later securities case wrote that the government had designated the Bayview facility in Baltimore as one of just three U.S. sites pre-authorized to supply vaccines in a pandemic.

Pandemic-relief / PPP-EIDL role

Emergent's pandemic money came from federal contracts, not relief loans. On May 24, 2020 BARDA, part of HHS's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, signed a $470,891,540 task order with Emergent Manufacturing Operations Baltimore LLC for "CIADM manufacturing capacity reservation and expansion." The award record lists its fair-opportunity basis as "only one source." Bayview then made vaccine drug substance for both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca.

The plant's quality problems were known inside the company. On June 24, 2020 Sean Kirk, Emergent's head of manufacturing, forwarded Kramer an FDA letter and wrote that the state of Bayview's quality systems "keeps me up at night." Kramer replied that they should discuss "bringing in outside resources to get in front of this, while we recruit permanent resources to lead."

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis and the Oversight Committee reported in May 2022 that about 240 million doses were destroyed in late 2020 and early 2021 and that nearly 400 million doses were destroyed in all. After Emergent cross-contaminated doses in March 2021, federal officials halted manufacturing there from April to July 2021. The staff report found that on February 11, 2021, about an hour before FDA inspectors toured, employees removed quality-assurance "hold tags" from two containers of Johnson & Johnson drug substance. An outside consultant wrote that the tags came off "to avoid drawing attention." The task order's period of performance ended November 1, 2021.

Their own relief

The SBA's PPP data show no loan to Emergent BioSolutions; the borrowers named "Emergent" are unrelated firms. The company's pandemic revenue came through the BARDA task order and its manufacturing contracts with Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. No relief loan to Kramer personally appears in the documents cited here.

Kramer has not been charged with any crime. On April 19, 2021 Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney and Chairman James E. Clyburn opened an investigation with a letter to Kramer and Executive Chairman Fuad El-Hibri. On May 19, 2021 Kramer testified under oath before the Select Subcommittee. "I apologize for the failure of our controls," he said. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi told him he had been paid $5.6 million for 2020, when no usable doses reached Americans. The compensation committee had recommended $7.8 million for 2021. Krishnamoorthi asked whether Kramer would return his $1.9 million bonus. "Congressman, I will not make that commitment, no," Kramer answered. Asked about his stock sales, he said they "were made pursuant to the plan that was approved by the company," a Rule 10b5-1 plan.

Investors sued Emergent and certain executives, alleging misstatements about Bayview's readiness. Plaintiffs' counsel, Pomerantz LLP, alleged that the CEO changed his trading plan to sell more than 88,000 shares for over $11 million during the class period. The court granted final approval to a $40 million class settlement in late February 2025. A settlement is not a finding of liability.

Where they are now (2025–2026)

When Kramer left in June 2023, Haywood Miller of Berkeley Research Group became interim CEO; Kramer stayed on as an adviser until August 1, 2023. Joseph C. Papa became president and CEO on February 21, 2024. On March 19, 2025 Emergent completed the sale of the Bayview drug-substance plant to Syngene International for about $36.5 million at closing, keeping rights to manufacturing capacity there.

Sources

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