‘Some­thing needs to change’: An Al­ler­gan an­a­lyst spells out why next week’s vote could still spark a ma­jor re­vamp

Just be­cause ISS and Glass Lewis have thrown their weight be­hind Al­ler­gan CEO Brent Saun­ders in the up­com­ing share­hold­er vote at the an­nu­al meet­ing on Wednes­day doesn’t mean that die-hard crit­ics have put aside the man­i­festoes and hel­mets in prepa­ra­tion for a prop­er melee.

To­day SVB Leerink’s Marc Good­man wad­ed in­to the fray, tak­ing a crit­i­cal view of the past 3 years un­der Saun­ders as the stock price steadi­ly sank to half of its old size — af­ter the share price was dri­ven by ex­u­ber­ance as the deal­mak­ing CEO took over and start­ed to re­make the pipeline. Not­ing that the proxy firms’ de­ci­sion to side with Saun­ders against a pro­pos­al from ac­tivists at Ap­paloosa def­i­nite­ly shift­ed the odds more in his fa­vor, Good­man un­der­scores that there’s a strong de­sire for change at Al­ler­gan — change that shouldn’t have to wait.

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