Amylin claims Icahn wants deep cuts ahead of sale

Amylin Pharmaceuticals' lead director James Wilson says that Carl Icahn wants to arrange a quick sale of the company to Eli Lilly. But first he's planning some deep cuts on top of a restructuring already in place. And James Wilson thinks the whole proposal is a terrible idea.

Wilson details Icahn's plans in a letter filed with the SEC, noting that a sale of the biotech company now would "dramatically undervalue" Amylin.  The letter also says that Icahn intends to immediately slash spending at Amylin by 30 percent, even after the developer had slashed 25 percent of its San Diego work force last November.

And Icahn evidently directed a special dig at Amylin's CEO. "Finally, on our call you asked, "Who is Dan Bradbury?" writes Wilson, who goes on to outline Bradbury's 25-year career in biopharma.

But Icahn, who has triggered a proxy fight for control of Amylin's board in much the same way he took over ImClone, says that the Wilson letter misstated the gist of conversations he had with Wilson and chairman Joseph Cook.

Amylin and Lilly are already in a 50-50 partnership involving the diabetes drug Byetta, which has been linked with potential safety issues recently. And now the two companies are preparing to file for approval of a weekly version of Byetta.

- here's the full letter [1]
- read the report [2] from Reuters
- check out the story [1] from Bloomberg

Related Articles:
Amylin: Icahn aims for sale to Lilly [3]
Icahn demands Amylin chair's head [4]
Icahn makes play for Amylin control [5]
Icahn boosts stake in Amylin [6]
Icahn: Biotechs must merge with Big Pharma [7]