Ac­tivist in­vestor Carl Ic­ahn has tak­en a small stake in Al­ler­gan, join­ing a grow­ing list of weighty share­hold­ers who could in­flu­ence the com­pa­ny’s strat­e­gy at a time when in­vestors are push­ing for changes.

With com­pe­ti­tion edg­ing in on its two top sell­ers — Botox and Resta­sis — Al­ler­gan $AGN has strug­gled to ap­pease its share­hold­ers with a plan of ac­tion. The com­pa­ny’s ef­fort to pro­tect its Resta­sis IP through the con­tro­ver­sial — and ul­ti­mate­ly failed — trib­al li­cens­ing strat­e­gy didn’t help mat­ters.

Brent Saun­ders

We don’t know the size of Ic­ahn’s stake, or what his plans might be for the com­pa­ny. But we do know Ic­ahn has been rather friend­ly in the past to Al­ler­gan CEO Brent Saun­ders, push­ing for him in 2013 to be­come CEO of For­est Lab­o­ra­to­ries (which through merg­ers and ac­qui­si­tions be­came Al­ler­gan).

Top share­hold­ers are look­ing for ac­tivist in­vestors to make some changes at the Dublin-based drug­mak­er, Bloomberg, which first re­port­ed the news, re­ports, cit­ing un­named sources “fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter.” In ad­di­tion to Ic­ahn, ac­tivist in­vestor Alex Den­ner at Saris­sa Cap­i­tal al­so has a stake in Al­ler­gan. Den­ner is known for be­ing Ic­ahn’s for­mer pro­tégé and for his his­to­ry of spurring ac­qui­si­tions at com­pa­nies in which he in­vests. His stake in Al­ler­gan is no­table even though its small, con­sid­er­ing Saris­sa’s fair­ly re­cent stake in Iron­wood, Al­ler­gan’s part­ner on IBS and con­sti­pa­tion drug Linzess.

David Tep­per

Plus, Ic­ahn’s in­vest­ment fol­l­lows David Tep­per’s 1% stake at Al­ler­gan. Tep­per, founder and pres­i­dent of Ap­paloosa, just made head­lines this Tues­day for his let­ter to Al­ler­gan push­ing the drug­mak­er to over­haul its man­age­ment.

“It is time for Al­ler­gan’s man­age­ment to con­cen­trate on run­ning a world class phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and aes­thet­ics busi­ness and forego thoughts of, or the ex­hil­a­ra­tion from, an am­bi­tious ac­qui­si­tion strat­e­gy,” Tep­per wrote in a let­ter to Al­ler­gan’s board.

Among Tep­per’s sug­ges­tions was split­ting up the roles of CEO and chair­man, both of which are oc­cu­pied by Saun­ders at the mo­ment.

Ic­ahn, who had in­vest­ed in Al­ler­gan in the past, be­lieves the com­pa­ny’s stock is un­der­val­ued, the sources said, ask­ing not to be iden­ti­fied be­cause the mat­ter is con­fi­den­tial.

Al­ler­gan re­cent­ly did a strate­gic re­view of the com­pa­ny, com­ing out af­ter with plans to sell its women’s health and in­fec­tious dis­ease units to fo­cus on med­ical aes­thet­ics, CNS, eye care and GI — ar­eas in which the com­pa­ny be­lieves it’s com­pet­i­tive to ri­vals.

Al­ler­gan is­sued this state­ment in re­sponse to ques­tions about Ic­ahn’s stake:

“Al­ler­gan wel­comes all in­vest­ments in our com­pa­ny. We main­tain an ac­tive di­a­logue with our share­hold­ers and val­ue their con­struc­tive in­put and ideas on de­liv­er­ing long-term val­ue.”

The com­pa­ny’s stock is up 2% on the news.

Im­age: Carl Ic­ahn. GET­TY IM­AGES

89bio said its drug was better than placebo at lessening fibrosis without worsening nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, in two of three dose groups.

The San Francisco biotech said it thinks the Phase IIb data pave the way for a potential Phase III, following in the footsteps of another biotech in its drug class, Akero Therapeutics. To fund a late-stage study, CEO Rohan Palekar told Endpoints News 89bio “would need to raise additional capital,” with the company having about $188 million at the end of last year.

Today, we’re opening nominations for our fifth annual Women in Biopharma R&D special report.

Over the last four years, we’ve honored 80 women whose extraordinary accomplishments have changed the game in biopharma R&D. We’re looking for big thinkers, scientists, executives and other enterprising women who are breaking barriers in drug development and inspiring the next generation of leaders.