Iron­wood dodges a Den­ner board seat, but the ac­tivist in­vestor still has words of ad­vice

Iron­wood has suc­cess­ful­ly fend­ed off ac­tivist in­vestor Alex Den­ner from join­ing its board, the com­pa­ny an­nounced Thurs­day fol­low­ing a share­hold­er meet­ing. But Den­ner isn’t done giv­ing out tips.

Den­ner’s com­pa­ny Saris­sa Cap­i­tal took a stake in Iron­wood late last year, and soon af­ter an­nounced plans to snag a seat at the ta­ble. Iron­wood $IR­WD cam­paigned for share­hold­ers to re­ject Den­ner ear­li­er this month, al­though it first seemed open to the idea. Den­ner is prob­a­bly best known as Carl Ic­ahn’s pro­tégé, with a his­to­ry of spurring ac­qui­si­tions of the com­pa­nies in which he in­vests. He served as chair­man of Ari­ad be­fore Take­da ac­quired the can­cer com­pa­ny for $5.2 bil­lion last year. He was al­so a board mem­ber at Biover­a­tiv be­fore it was sold to Sanofi for $11.6 bil­lion ear­li­er this year. And he re­cent­ly took con­trol of The Med­i­cines Co $MD­CO amid con­sid­er­able buzz.

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