Bio Job Blog : Bio Jobs : Biotechnology Jobs : Biopharmaceutical Jobs : Bioscience, Biotech Jobs : Bio Job Blog : Biocareer : Bio-Business Training, Biotechnology Training : Jobs in Biology : Internships in Biology : Internships in Biotechnology

Carl Ichan, the billionaire, activist investor notified Genzyme that he will seek shareholder approval to seat four handpicked directors including himself to be appointed to the company’s board of directors in an attempt to remove embattled Chairman and CEO Henri Termeer who has led the company for the past 25 years.

The move was widely anticipated by industry analysts because Icahn own one percent of outstanding shares of Genzyme’s stock.  Icahn and other large shareholders believe the company would be better off under new leadership. Termeer has publicly stated that he has no intention of resigning.

Until recently, Genzyme’s standing and reputation in the biopharmaceutical and orphan drug industry was second-to-none. However, the company’s inability to quickly correct ongoing manufacturing problems at its biomanufacturing facilities for the past year has been extremely embarrassing and costly. Sloppy manufacturing and quality control problems this past year led to major shortages of two main products, Cerezyme and Fabrazyme. Consequently, in 2009 sales revenues dropped and company earnings were almost flat. Further, Genzyme shares lost 26% of their value in 2009, sinking to a five-year low.

Icahn is no stranger to hostile corporate takeovers and company sales. In spring of 2008, he unsuccessfully tried to gain control of the Biogen/Idec board to force the sale of the company (Ichan owns 5.6% of Biogen/Idec’s outstanding shares). Later that year, Icahn engineered the sale of ImClone to Eli Lilly for $7.0 billion; after getting into a very public and often acrimonious fight with Bristol-Myers Squibb CEO Jim Cornelius who tendered a “low-ball offer” (according to Icahn) to purchase ImClone.

According to my calculations, Icahn is batting .500 for his recent corporate takeover attempts. Do you think he will be able to go 2-for-3? I bet Henri Termeer is hoping that he can’t!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

As many of you may recall, in 2001, Sam Waksal, founder and former CEO of the biotechnology company ImClone was convicted (along with his good friend Martha Stewart) for fraud and insider trading of ImClone stock. Waksal, who was released from prison in late 2008 and lived in a half way house for several months had kept a relatively low profile until earlier this month. Rumor has it that Sam along with Richard Mulligan, PhD a Harvard professor and former ImClone director and Dr. Larry Witte, a current executive vice president in the ImClone division of Eli Lilly are attempting raise about $50 million for the privately-held new venture called Kadmon. Other reports indicate that Waksal and other members of the Kadmon team are putting up $50 million as well. 

According to insider reports the company will ostensibly focus on cancer and infectious disease targets and—taking a page out of the Cubist, Celgene and Sepracor play books—re-purpose once promising drug candidates discarded by other companies. To that end, according an article in TheStreet, the company's drug research programs include a "statin inhibitor for influenza" from a "leading Ivy League university" along with a variety of monoclonal antibodies for use as targeted cancer treatments, similar to Erbitux. Kadmon is also eyeing several existing cancer-focused drug companies, one of which already has a marketed product, as acquisition targets, according to the prospectus. For those of you who may be wondering about whether or not Waksal can legally start another biotechnology company, an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission bars Waksal from serving as an officer in a publicly traded company, but as previously mentioned, Kadmon is a private venture.

Whether you like Waksal or not, his track record in the biotechnology industry speaks for itself. Unlike the vast majority of his rivals, Waksal shepherded a molecule from discovery through commercialization. That molecule, a monoclonal antibody called Erbitux, became a multibillion dollar a year treatment for certain forms of colorectal cancer. More importantly, Waksal was one of the first to recognize that humanized monoclonal antibodies directed against certain cellular receptors could be used to treat a variety of oncology indications—a concept that is driving a large portion of discovery and product development in the oncology space. For those of you who may not know, Eli Lilly purchased ImClone two years ago for $7.0 billion dollars after a very public and acrimonious fight over the sale price of ImClone erupted between Carl Icahn, ImClone’s Chairman, and Jim Cornelius, CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). ImClone and BMS co-marketed Eribitux prior to the sale.

Waksal has been in and around the biotechnology industry for over 30 years and many consider him to be one of the early industry pioneers. Unfortunately, despite his dubious past, Waksal represents a dying breed of visionaries whose entrepreneurial spirit and unorthodox approach to new drug development is largely responsible the biotechnology industry’s current largess. Like other ex-felons Waksal did his time and like all Americans he is entitled to a second chance.

Let’s hope that Sam learned a few things during his incarceration and is smarter and wiser for his second and possibly final act. I wish Waksal success in his new venture and I hope that he and his team still possess the insight, creativity and tenacity required to discover and develop innovative oncology and infectious diseases drugs.

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

While Genzyme has begun to address its manufacturing woes and its CEO and top leadership have managed to keep their jobs, the specter of a possible forced sale of the company has emerged. This is because Carl Icahn, the billionaire, activist investor with a history of forcing the sale of financially-challenged and underperforming public biopharmaceutical companies like ImClone and MedImmune, owns 1 percent of the outstanding shares of Genzyme.

Speculation is rife that Icahn and Ralph Whitworth, a founder of Relational Investors which owns 4 percent of Genzyme’s stock, may force the company to put itself up for sale. While many experts contend that this may not be in the best financial interests of Icahn and Whitworth (or other institutional investors), the threat may allow both men to get themselves or their representatives on Genzyme’s board. This would allow them to control the direction of the company and better position the company (the fifth largest biotechnology company in the world) for future sale. Henri Termeer, Genzyme’s embattle CEO, said he has had no contact with Icahn.

Investors have not been pleased with Genzyme’s current management team’s decision to plow profits from its orphan disease business into R&D activities that have been unsuccessful. According to a recent Citigroup financial report, the company may have squandered over $1.0 billion (throughout its history) by investing into unprofitable, non-core research areas including kidney disease diagnostics and surgical products. Conventional wisdom suggests that if Icahn and Whitworth gain control of the Genzyme board that they could sell off Genzyme’s unprofitable kidney disease and surgical lines which would allow management to focus on orphan diseases drug development and allow the company to fix its recent highly publicized manufacturing problems.  Relational’s Whitworth hinted that this is one scenario that he may be interested in pursuing. To date, Icahn has been uncharacteristically mute on a possible takeover attempt.

Stayed tuned for more details.

Until next time....

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!! (try Genzyme, they are probably looking for a few good biomanufacturing executives and managers)  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Carl Icahn, former corporate raider, hedge fund owner and activist investor, is still trying to exert his influence at Biogen/IDEC a biotechnology company in which he owns 5.6 percent of its outstanding shares of stock.  As you may recall, last year, Mr. Icahn tried to wrest control of the Biogen/IDEC board to force the company to put itself up for sale. That attempt failed but yesterday Mr. Icahn was managed to get two of his allies appointed to the Biogen/IDEC board of directors at the company's annual shareholder meeting.

Mr Icahn has long contended that Biogen/IDEC's management team is inhibiting growth and squandering shareholder value. Wall Street analysts predict that Carl will push hard to split the company into two separate entities: one focused on neurobiology (Biogen/IDEC is a market leader for drugs designed to treat Multiple Sclerosis) and the other on cancer.  Another scenario suggests that he will leave the company intact and find a buyer for it--similar to the plan that he attempted to implement last year.

The Biogen/IDEC news follows quickly on the heels of a management coup that he orchestrated at Amylin Pharmaceuticals earlier in the week. On Tuesday, Mr Icahn, along with the hedge fund Eastbourne Capital management, were successful in ousting Amylin's Chairman Joseph C. Cook, Jr. and director James N. Wilson. Mr. Icahn exerted his influence at Amylin because he felt that sales of its key diabetes drug Byetta were too low.  Others believe that he is preparing the company for sale to Eli Lilly which co-markets Byetta with Amylin.

Mr Icahn is certainly no stranger when it comes to maximizing shareholder value at biotechnology companies where he holds substantial stock positions.  Last year, he orchestrated the sale of ImClone to Eli Lilly after getting into a protracted bidding war with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) over the cancer drug Erbitux.  At that time, BMS had an exclusive marketing agreement with Imclone for US sales of Erbitux.

Whether or not you like Carl, he is very good at what he does. And, in the end, he has a gift for maximixing shareholder value of companies that he and others have invested in!

Until next time...

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

After months of melodrama and acrimonious exchanges between Jim Cornelius and Carl Icahn, Eli Lilly, not Bristol-Myers Squibb, will acquire ImClone and gain access to the multibillion Erbitux franchise. In the end, Carl Icahn, ImClone’s Chairman, got the $70 per share that he wanted for ImClone stock.

BMS’s reluctance to purchase ImClone at the $70 per share price is puzzling. The Pharmalot blog reported that Jim Cornelius, BMS’s CEO, released the following statement after the ImClone/Lilly deal was finalized “We are pleased to have initiated a process that has resulted in the substantial increase of ImClone’s value for all of its stockholders. Perhaps Bristol-Myers has made a comfortable bid for ImClone which would be, in our view, very attractive to the company. If however, it did not succeed then it can liquidate its stake at a premium.” This makes about as much sense as Sarah Palin’s explanation of the factors responsible for global warming—the amount of money that BMS would garner if it liquidates its 16% stake in ImClone would pale in comparison to revenues that would annually accrue from Erbitux sales. Apparently I am not alone in my thinking. According to a financial analyst “the stake’s value independent of full ownership of IMCL is NOT strategic, and gets BMY nothing,”

In my opinion, Jim Cornelius’s failure to acquire ImClone (at any cost) has jeopardized BMS’s future. He had the opportunity to right the wrongheaded licensing deal that his predecessor Peter Dolan entered into with ImClone. The inability of BMS to retain at least partial ownership of its flagship biotechnology product doesn’t bode well for a company that is trying to reinvent itself as a “next generation biopharma company”—if there is a next generation at BMS.

 Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

As reported yesterday by the Pharmalot Blog and verified by the New York Times today, the undisclosed “white knight” drug maker that may help ImClone ward off a hostile takeover bid by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) will make a decision by Wednesday about whether or not it wants to make an offer for the biotech company. 

As you may recall, Carl Icahn, ImClone’s Chairman, announced about a month ago that an unnamed drug company may be willing to offer $70 per share for ImClone stock. BMS responded to the announcement by raising its initial offer from $60 to $62.50 per share for outstanding shares of ImClone’s stock. This feeble counteroffer did nothing but increase the hostilities between ImClone and BMS. BMS currently markets Erbitux ImClone’s blockbuster colon cancer treatment. Based on the tenor of this deal, it is becoming increasingly apparent that ImClone and BMS are not “close” even though they are business partners.

Mr. Icahn, in a brilliant display of his business acumen, has been able to prevent industry insiders from divining the identity of the mysterious suitor (if there is one at all). Conventional wisdom suggests that it is likely to be one of the larger drug companies that would like increase its market share in the biotechnology sector.  The good news is that we may only have to wait another 24 hours before this “cliffhanger” of a deal is resolved (ho-hum). Don’t be surprised that, in the end, BMS may wind up paying more than $70 per share to purchase ImClone.

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

 Previously, on the Bristol-Myers Squibb/ImClone Let’s Make a Deal Show. BMS offered $60 per share for the outstanding shares of ImClone that it doesn’t already own. As expected, Carl Icahn, ImClones’s Chairman and former corporate raider, summarily rejected BMS’ offer as insulting and an attempt by BMS to undervalue ImClone’s stock. Then, after a month of silence between the two parties, Mr Icahn announced that an undisclosed pharmaceutical suitor had made a better offer to buy ImClone. Today, about three weeks after Mr Icahn disclosed the information about his mysterious stranger, BMS (as expected) grudgingly raised its offer from $60 to $62 per share. The mysterious stranger seems to be out of the mix now.

Conventional wisdom (and word on the street) suggests that ImClone’s stock is worth about $70-$75 per share and that Carl (and the ImClone board of directors) will not sell the company for anything less. Today’s exchange between BMS and ImClone prompted a Wall Street analyst who has been closely following the twists and turns of the deal to write “we view Bristol’s increased bid and attempt to remove the company’s board as futile. The premium over the prior $60 offer is insufficient, in our view, to woo the larger ImClone stock holders to join it in revolt against Mr. Icahn and his allies on the board. The net result of Bristol’s efforts will amount to little more than yet another exchange of testy letters between the two parties.” And, in fact, Jim Cornelius, BMS’s CEO took the opportunity to do just 

It seems to me that whether or not a deal is reached depends more on who wins the pissing match between Mr Cornelius and Mr. Icahn rather than what is in the best interest of the shareholders of both companies. C’mon guys, we are currently in the midst of the worst economic meltdown in the history of the US —do the right thing and consummate the deal already!

Tune in next time for latest installment of the BMS/ImClone Let’s Make a Deal Show.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

According to a post at the Pharmalot blog, Carl Icahn, Chairman of ImClone, thinks that BMS’ offer last week of $4.5 billion to purchase ImClone is way too low. Icahn feels that the bid was motivated, in part, because ImClone is developing a drug that may compete with Erbitux, and BMS may not have rights to the new drug. Bristol (like it has for Erbitux). I suspect that he is correct but as I mentioned last week, BMS is committed to becoming a next generation biopharma company and the acquisition of ImClone make perfect strategic and financial sense to me. Personally, I think that Carl is posturing (like any good businessman) because he knows that the BMS offer will not be the final offer tendered for ImClone.

As I have stated many times in the past on this blog, Carl seems to know a lot about biotechnology despite no formal training and no hands-on experience in the biz. Maybe he ought to start his own biotechnology company and own 100 percent of its stock. That way he will not have to raid other companies to gain control of their boards to purchase more stock or simply sell the companies? Life would certainly be easier for those biotechnology CEOs and their boards who have  work long and hard to create profitable businesses.

Don’t be surprised if BMS raises its purchase offer for ImClone. BMS finalized is flush with cash after it finalized the sale late last week of its former subsidiary ConvaTec for $6.6 billion.

Until next time…

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Chalk up one for the good guys (good is a relative term). Carl Icahn has given up on his quest to gain control of the Cambridge-based biotechnology giant, Biogen/IDEC. Actually, he was forced to give up because the slate of board members that he hoped would be elected to the Biogen/IDEC board failed to gain shareholder support and lost its bid for the board at a recent shareholder meeting.

Icahn, who owns about 4% of outstanding shares of the company, wanted to gain control of the Biogen/IDEC board so that he could force the company to try once again to sell itself to a large pharmaceutical company (rather than remain independent). As you may recall, the company tried to sell itself late last year but failed to find any buyers. Icahn accused the company of not trying hard enough! Give it a break Carl…its not always about you!

Despite the fact that Carl has his name on a molecular biology building at Princeton University (he is an alumnus), he knows very little about the biotechnology business. My advice to him is to raid companies that make commodities that he knows something about—widgets, plastics, automobiles — maybe even oil.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (try Biogen/IDEC)!!!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

It looks as though Enzon Pharmaceuticals, the first company to successfully commercialize protein PEGylation, finally buckled under the pressure exerted by Carl Icahn, one of its major shareholders.  As I mentioned in a previous post, Carl recently started buying large blocks of Enzon stock to gain a controlling interest in the company to maximize shareholder value. To accommodate Icahn’s "vision" and demands, Jeff Buchalter, Enzon’s Chairman and CEO has decided to spin out a new biotechnology company.  According to an Enzon press release, the new company (to be named later) will get Enzon’s core technology (PEGylation) and its entire preclinical pipeline (i.e.; their RNA antagonist oncology portfolio). Enzon will also invest $150m in the new venture.

So, what does Enzon get out of the deal? It retains ownership of a small, aging manufacturing facility and a portfolio of nominally-performing specialty pharma drugs. I think comments made by Eben Tessari, a financial analyst who follows Enzon, sums up of the essence of the proposed spin out.  He writes: “Maybe I’m way off here but it seems to me in analyzing this deal that the new company gets all the goodies while Enzon is left with a manufacturing plant and a stable of marginal drugs (zero out of four therapies have over $50m a year in revenue). Now, I don’t mean to imply that I think Enzon is a bad company - hell, they’ve managed to make more profit this quarter than any pharma company I’ve ever worked for - I’m just saying they are selling their future based on the advice of a man notorious for breaking up companies and wringing every last dime out of a shakeup.”

Not surprisingly, Jeff Buchalter, the brains behind the deal, thinks it will provide Enzon shareholders with the value that they demand. “By separating these unique businesses into two focused companies, the opportunities for both the specialty pharmaceutical business and the biotechnology business could be substantially enhanced and greater value could be created than under the current structure. Operating separately will allow each company to benefit from greater strategic and managerial focus and appeal to their own unique shareholders. The separation will enable the two businesses to compete more effectively in their respective markets and optimize their business goals, research initiatives and capital requirements. We look forward to creating this opportunity for the shareholders,” said Buchalter.

Jeff, who learned how to turn around failing companies from his former boss Fred Hassan (turn around specialist and current CEO of Schering Plough) ought to know a little something about value. According to SEC filings, last year Jeff made $773,558 (base salary) with $1,162,500 in bonuses for a total cash compensation of about $2 million. In addition, Jeff received just over $3.1 million in equity bringing his total 2007 compensation package to approximately $5.2 million —almost 3 times the amount received by any other Enzon executive.  Not that there is anything wrong with that!!!!!!!!!!!!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (try Enzon’s spin out, they are flush with cash)!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

I have been following the trials and tribulations of New Jersey-based Enzon Pharmaceuticals for the past decade. My interest in Enzon was kindled because of a friendship with Abe Abuchowski, Enzon’s former Chairman, CEO and Founder.  For those of you who may not know, Abe is sometimes called the “father of protein PEGylation” because he was first to harness the commercial power of the technology (he played a pivotal role in creating the technology as a graduate student in Frank Davis’ lab at Rutgers University).

Abe left Enzon in the early 1990s (after shepherding the US regulatory approval for Adagen®, Oncospar®, and PEG-Intron®) and in 2004, he (along with my help) founded Prolong Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in PEGylation of biogenerics. Prolong is also using protein PEGylation to create new antimicrobial and blood replacement products.

Over the years, Enzon has had its share of “ups” and “downs.” Although profitable through much of the 1990s, Enzon is now a company riddled with huge debt– mostly because of bad decisions made company executives in the post-Abuchowski era.  Since 2004, Enzon’s Chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Buchalter, has worked diligently to “right” the company. He realigned and focused the company’s strategic objectives and, through some creative financing, reduced some of Enzon/s more onerous debt obligations. To that end, he was able to restore shareholder confidence and stabilize Enzon’s stock price. Unfortunately, Jeff’s efforts may not be enough to save the company from acquisition or merger.

Many industry insiders believe that Buchalter was hired four years ago to prepare the company for sale. Yesterday, Enzon disclosed in a SEC filing, that the self-proclaimed biotech maven, Carl C. Icahn, increased his Enzon stock position from 1,760,001 to 3,072,103 shares. After the purchase, Icahn owns about 6.93% of the company’s outstanding shares and is one of its largest, single shareholders. Not surprisingly, Icahn now wants the company to consider putting itself up for sale. Maybe the insiders were correct in their thinking?

Stay tuned for more details.

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (forget New Jersey)!!!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Despite putting itself up for sale and finding no buyers, Carl Icahn still believes that Biogen is an attractive buyout opportunity for some unsuspecting pharma company. In fact, it was Carl who forced Biogen to put itself up for sale last fall (to avert a nasty proxy fight that he threatened). Carl, who owns 4.2 % of the company, believed that Biogen was underperforming and its stock price was too low.

To make his ongoing dream a reality, Mr. Icahn moved today to appoint three members (loyal to him) to the Biogen board. In an SEC filing, Mr. Ichan said that at Biogen's upcoming shareholder meeting he will nominate three people to Biogen's board (which elects four directors each year), and seek to cap the board's size at 12. If successful, Mr. Icahn would then be “within striking distance” to control a majority of Biogen's board by next year.

The three people that Icahn nominated were Alexander Denner, managing director of the Icahn investment vehicle Icahn Partners; Richard Mulligan, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and Dr. Anne Young, head of the neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Interestingly, Dr. Mulligan and Mr. Denner also serve on the board of ImClone Systems, which elected Icahn chairman last year, after a bitter battle during which Icahn accused the ImClone management of improperly developing its cancer drug Erbitux.

Carl has taken a fancy to biotech in recent years and now considers himself to be somewhat of maven.  Although there a molecular biology building at Princeton University which bears his name (he is an alumnus), he is still a corporate raider at heart. After moving into MedImmune stock in early 2007, Icahn threatened a proxy contest at the annual meeting if it did not find a buyer. Several days later, AstraZeneca said it would buy MedImmune for a whopping $15.6 billion. Carl usually gets what he sets out to do.

It appears that Biogen has not heard the last from Mr. Icahn. I suspect that things will continue to get ugly in Cambridge. Stayed tuned for updates!

Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (not at Biogen)!!!!!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link