(Bloomberg) -- Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co.’s president and chairman are stepping down after the deaths of dozens of people suspected to be caused by health supplements containing red yeast.
President Akihiro Kobayashi and Chairman Kazumasa Kobayashi will step aside and Executive Officer Satoshi Yamane will take over as president, the Osaka-based company, one of Japan’s biggest supplement makers, said in a statement Tuesday.
Kobayashi Pharmaceutical said last month that it was investigating the deaths of 76 people who ingested pills containing the yeast, whose scientific name is monascus purpureus and which has been used for more than a millennium as a pigment and to make red rice wine and foods.
The company in March announced a recall of the supplement and other products using the ingredient. A report by a third-party committee said the firm should have acted sooner after receiving a report in January of the death of a customer with a suspected link to the product.
The company’s shares fell as much as 2.3% in trading in Tokyo on Tuesday, and the stock is down more than 18% this year.
Akihiro Kobayashi will remain on board to handle compensation for victims, and both he and Yamane will return roughly half of their compensation from the past six months, according to the statement.
Promoting company veteran Yamane will provide reassurance and uncertainty to investors, Hisae Kawamoto, an analyst at Jefferies, wrote in a research note. He isn’t likely to bring about significant changes in the company’s management, the analyst added.
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