STAT+: Pharmalittle: A not-so-new Biogen?; ALS Association and 15 chapters part ways over organizational clashes
This was supposed to be the new Biogen. Instead, the company's board saddled CEO Chris Viehbacher with the first crisis of his tenure at the company.
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This was supposed to be the new Biogen, STAT says. When Chris Viehbacher, a respected pharmaceutical executive, took over as chief executive officer in November, Wall Street saw him as a steadying force for a wayward company and a strong personality who would stand up to its quarrelsome board. Instead, the board saddled him with the first crisis of his tenure at the company. Alex Denner, a longtime director, nominated a biotech executive who is also the mother of his child to succeed him on the board, and Biogen did disclose the relationship to shareholders, an omission that shocked people close to the company and undermined the notion Biogen was changing for the better.
Activist investor Sarissa Capital may have cleared a stumbling block in its push for board seats at Alkermes when one of its candidates resigned from Biogen, which has a commercial relationship with the drugmaker, Reuters says. The hedge fund’s founder, Alex Denner, one of three Sarissa candidates running for seats on the Alkermes board, on Monday said he would give up his board seat at Biogen. The move eliminates “any claim of conflict whatsoever,” Sarissa wrote to Alkermes shareholders on Tuesday. Alkermes licensed a multiple sclerosis drug to Biogen for commercialization, and some analysts worried it would be problematic for Denner to potentially sit on both boards.
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