Amylin Nears Endgame With Icahn, Sciele Pharma Declares Victory in Buyout, Nanogen Files Bankruptcy, & More San Diego Life Sciences News
Bruce V. Bigelow5/21/09Leave a CommentFollow @bvbigelow
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conference hosted last week by San Diego’s Wireless Life Sciences Alliance, also said it’s critical to get insurance companies to approve reimbursements for innovative medical technologies.
—Biogen Idec told its shareholders that a split advocated by dissident shareholder Carl Icahn would not make the Cambridge, MA, life sciences company more attractive as a buyout target. Icahn has called for breaking the company up and selling off the pieces. Biogen responded by saying a Big Pharma buyout of the company would create administrative redundancies, add costs, and eliminate dual-use opportunities for certain drugs under development.
—Amylin Pharmaceuticals’ board of directors, which has been defending itself from criticism from dissident shareholders Carl Icahn and Eastbourne Capital Management, now has a new dissident to contend with: Howard “Ted” Greene, the company’s co-founder, and a former CEO and board member. Greene recently switched sides in Amylin proxy fight, saying, telling me in an e-mail that, “certain members encumbered with traditional pharmaceutical dogma and our past mistakes should be replaced.” Luke also spoke with one of Icahn’s director nominees, Alex Denner, who insists he’s not looking to do a quick sale of Amylin.
—San Diego’s Fate Therapeutics says it has gained exclusive rights to technology involving blood-forming stem cells from Children’s Hospital Boston and Massachusetts General Hospital. The high-profile biotech is using recent advances in stem cell biology to develop new drugs.
—Canada’s Biovail gave San Diego’s Acadia Pharmaceuticals a vote of confidence when it paid $30 million for rights to a drug Acadia has under development for treating psychosis related to Parkinson’s disease. But the market’s ho-hum valuation of Acadia has CEO Uli Hacksell hoping for a more enthusiastic response when the results of a late-stage trial for the drug become available in four months or so.
—Joel Martin, a partner who left San Diego’s Forward Ventures in October, was named as the new president and CEO of Altair Therapeutics. Founded in 2007, privately held Altair is developing therapeutics for respiratory diseases like asthma and rhinitis (a.k.a stuffy, runny nose).
Bruce V. Bigelow is the editor of Xconomy San Diego. You can e-mail him at bbigelow@xconomy.com or call (619) 669-8788
