Newly minted Biogen Idec CEO George Scangos (photo) sat down recently with the Wall Street Journal to review his thoughts on the big shakeup now underway at the company and where he now sits on the "food chain" of biopharma. Among the highlights: Efficiency is in and decision-by-committee is out. And he's making a lot of decisions all by himself, without any suggestions coming from the board or Carl Icahn.
Scangos also made it clear that he's not making any of these moves to try and impress and would-be buyer. "I can't control whether the company gets sold some years down the road. We live in an industry where there will be continued consolidation. I think you have to be realistic about where we sit in the food chain and that may happen, but I'm not particularly concerned about it." And Scangos, who ran Exelixis for years, thinks it's a good idea to have someone with plenty of scientific experience at the helm.
"It is absolutely important and I think the industry has gotten away from having scientists or clinicians at the head. If you look at most pharma CEOs, they either come out of finance, commercial operations or law."
- here's the Q&A from the Wall Street Journal