WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — Lexington County drugmaker Nephron Pharmaceuticals said Friday that Lou Kennedy has left the chief executive post and that Haywood Miller is stepping in on an interim basis at the West Columbia campus.
Company officials said the shift was effective at once. Kennedy had led Nephron since 2007, succeeding her husband, Bill Kennedy, and was central to relocating the firm from Orlando to South Carolina.
Independent manager Richard Shinder credited Kennedy with long service and said Miller knows the operation well enough to push a turnaround and growth plan.
Miller brings roughly 30 years around drug manufacturing and health systems. He has spent recent months advising the company through Berkeley Research Group, where his background includes restructuring work.
Under Kennedy, Nephron opened its big Cayce-area plant in 2015. The West Columbia site in Saxe Gotha Industrial Park has been a major Lexington County employer, with staffing once above 1,200 full-time jobs making medicines and medical goods.
Trouble followed a 2022 sterility scare that pulled about 2 million product units from the market, and FDA inspectors catalogued problems inside the 715,000-square-foot works. Officials later said the firm had fixed enough issues to clear an earlier warning letter.
A former executive suit filed this year claims managers pushed false audit records, including missing fentanyl counts, and that case is now in federal court. Local coverage has also tracked county tax arrears and a short-lived for-sale sign on the headquarters that later came down.
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