Thursday, June 19, 2008

Biogen says shareholders liked their board bid better than Icahn’s

By Mass High Tech Staff

Biogen Idec Inc. appears to have prevailed in its proxy battle with billionaire shareholder Carl Icahn over the future of the biotech powerhouse’s board of directors, according to the company.

Cambridge-based Biogen (Nasdaq: BIIB) announced Thursday that a preliminary count from a shareholder vote at the company’s annual meeting shows that the firm’s four nominees will be elected to the board of directors. That would mean Icahn, who endorsed three different nominees and did not challenge the re-election of MIT professor and Biogen nominee Phillip Sharp to the board, has fallen short in his attempt to retool the board.

Icahn has criticized Biogen executives on how they handled the company’s failed process to sell the company in late 2007. Specifically, Icahn, who had advocated for the sale, contends that the company’s leadership sabotaged the sales process by denying prospective buyers the ability to talk to Biogen’s corporate partners before making a bid to acquire the company.

With 4,300 workers worldwide, Biogen reported 2007 net income of $638.2 million on revenue of $3.2 billion. The company’s products include Avonex and Tysabri for certain cases of multiple sclerosis and Rituxan for a type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, or cancer of the white blood cells.

Biogen said the final results of Thursday’s board election would be provided in two to three weeks.