Biotech, Life Sciences, Multiple Sclerosis
Contentious Biogen Idec Meeting Delayed; Icahn Nominee Objects, Saying “This is Not North Korea”
Luke Timmerman 6/3/09
Shareholders of Cambridge, MA-based Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) will have to wait a while to hear the outcome of the hotly contested board election. The company’s board called a recess during the annual meeting before results were announced on whether billionaire investor Carl Icahn was able to gain any seats on the company’s 13-member board.
The morning session of the meeting was contentious, and the call for a recess drew an objection from Alex Denner, one of the four nominees Icahn has put forward for the Biogen board. Icahn’s nominees shouted objections to the recess, calling it an improper manipulation of the process, according to this Wall Street Journal account.
“This is not North Korea,” Denner called out to Biogen chairman Bruce Ross after the recess was called, according to a Reuters account.
The meeting is expected to resume at 2 pm Eastern time.
Luke Timmerman is the National Biotechnology Editor for Xconomy. You can e-mail him at ltimmerman@xconomy.com, call 206-624-2374, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ldtimmerman.
