Except that Geoff Cumming was baby sat while at Roche, he wouldn't know how to develop a product from inception to approval. He was just a salesman/manager. Hardly an expert. Whereas Derek T has done that, not in the same field but he has done it.
My guess is that Derek T kept him and Parker at arm's length because of the fiasco that GC presided over on strategy. I don't know about Parker.
Having GC any closer wouldn't have made any difference. He's no expert on diagnostics approvals.
@semi retired has posted on the approval process and what has been going wrong on this particular situation and it may be timely to repost. Oh wait, I see he's saying that a TGA consultant was engaged. Well that's the approach that the former Chairman took; engage experts in the field and stop paying insiders for fluff. Only he got shafted for having the nous to do that.
(20min delay)