Iron­wood pleas with in­vestors: Don't give us Alex Den­ner

Iron­wood $IR­WD is ramp­ing its ef­forts to fend off a board ac­tivist known for auc­tion­ing biotechs to the high­est bid­der, send­ing out a plea to share­hold­ers Wednes­day to re­ject Alex Den­ner’s bid for a board seat.

At first, Iron­wood ap­peared open to the idea, no­ti­fy­ing share­hold­ers last month that Saris­sa Cap­i­tal, Den­ner’s com­pa­ny, planned to nom­i­nate him. Saris­sa took a stake in Iron­wood late last year. 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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