(Posted By: Josi Creek)
Biogen
Idec will officially be CEO-less starting tomorrow. James Mullen,
Biogen’s chief executive, retires on June 8 after a decade on the job
and the Cambridge, MA-based company hasn’t named his successor.
The
company, which also has significant operations in San Diego, said this
afternoon that its in the final stages of selecting the firm’s future
head honcho and expects to reveal its choice in “the coming weeks.”
Whether the company, the world’s largest maker of drugs for multiple
sclerosis, has even made an offer or picked someone for the CEO post is
unclear. Biogen spokeswoman Christina Chan declined to comment on these
specifics today.
In the meantime, the firm said today that the
company’s chief operating officer, Robert Hamm, is retiring from the
company on Dec. 31, 2010 after 16 years at the company.
Biogen’s
search for a new chief executive began around the time Mullen announced
his retirement from the CEO post and the firm’s board on January 4.
Mullen, who became CEO of Biogen in 2000, has taken some shots from
billionaire investor Carl Icahn in recent years for the company’s poor
stock performance compared with its peers in the biotech sector. Icahn
also has blasted Biogen’s senior management for the company’s inability
to launch a new drug on the U.S. market since the FDA approved its hit
MS product natalizumab (Tysabri) in November 2004.
Until Mullen’s
successor is named, the company’s senior executives will report to the
firm’s chairman, William Young. Young talked to Xconomy in February
about the company’s high-profile CEO search, saying that Biogen may opt
to hire a scientist for the firm’s No. 1 job.