Both Bloomberg and Reuters are reporting this morning that George Scangos will leave Exelixis to take over the helm at Biogen Idec. Quoting sources, the news wires report that the veteran biotech exec has been tapped to replace James Mullen, who left the company after a long and bruising fight with Wall Street raider Carl Icahn.
The appointment puts a scientist in the CEO's post at Biogen Idec. Scangos got his biology degree at Cornell. The news of Scangos' appointment to the helm of the big biotech, after 14 years running the relatively tiny Exelixis, was met with a mixed response on Wall Street.
"He's a very good dealmaker, but I wouldn't say Exelixis has done the best job at translating science into novel molecules that come to the marketplace," Michael King, an analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities in New York, tells Bloomberg. "It remains to be seen what he'll do at a company the size of Biogen."
- here's the story from Bloomberg
- and here's the Reuters piece