She built the business unit. She says the company handed it to a man hired from outside
A pharma executive who built a business from scratch says she was pushed out — for being a woman.
Lauren Landolph helped launch the animal health arm of Zydus Pharmaceuticals, a unit called ZyVet, and then ran it. Now she is suing both companies, saying they discriminated against her because she is a woman and retaliated once she complained.
Her complaint, filed June 8, 2026, in federal court in New Jersey, touches the everyday machinery of an HR function: who gets promoted, who gets a title, who gets invited into the room - and what happens to someone after they file a discrimination charge.
Landolph says she was one of the few women in senior management, and, by her account in the filing, the only female business unit head at the company worldwide. She alleges she was denied a more senior title because of her sex. The complaint says the company's own vice president of human resources, Cherill Alofoje, told Landolph she had pushed for the promotion but that senior management opposed it, and that there was "no legitimate reason" for the refusal. That detail - an HR leader described as privately agreeing with the employee - is what makes this case unusual reading for people who run HR functions.
The filing lays out a series of alleged remarks by male senior managers. Landolph says she was told she was getting "too thin" and that men did not find thin women attractive, and that managers commented it was odd she was not married and had no children. She also alleges that a male senior executive said she did not understand finance and was "unfit" to run a business unit.
The retaliation timeline is the heart of the case. Landolph says she complained internally again and again, then filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on March 14, 2025. She alleges the company cut off her email access while she was on leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, and that when she came back her direct reports and customer-facing work had been handed to a newly hired male general manager, recruited from outside the company. Landolph says she applied for that general manager job - which she argues was nearly identical to her own - and was never interviewed.
One allegation stands out. According to the filing, Landolph says the new general manager told her team that her leadership was comparable to "a toddler walking around shitting its pants," and that he was there to clean it up.
She resigned on June 18, 2025, calling it a constructive discharge - the legal term for quitting because conditions have been made unbearable enough to amount to a firing. In a resignation note to four company leaders, she wrote that she could "no longer continue in this role under the current circumstances."
Landolph brings three sets of claims: sex discrimination and retaliation under Title VII, a claim under the FMLA, and a claim under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. The EEOC issued her a notice of right to sue on April 28, 2026.
For HR teams, the case is a reminder of how closely courts and agencies scrutinize what happens after a complaint is filed - the demotions, the reassignments, the quiet removal of responsibilities. Process and documentation around promotions and post-complaint changes are exactly the ground this kind of case is fought on.
The allegations have not been tested in court. The defendants have not yet filed a response, and no court has ruled.
