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Acambis aims to take a more proactive approach to acquisitions following the appointment of Ian Garland as CEO, according to its chairman Peter Fellner. He said that the UK listed biotech could hypothetically be interested in allergy and even cancer vaccines, although he conceded that the latter, as a therapeutic class, has not had much success in the clinic over the years.
Acambis announced earlier on Wednesday that Garland was to replace outgoing chief executive Gordon Cameron from 1 June 2007. Meanwhile chief financial officer David Lawrence was replaced by Elizabeth Brown with immediate effect.
Garland was previously chief financial officer of Arrow Therapeutics, which was recently sold to AstraZeneca. Fellner, an experienced deal maker himself, said that Garland's previous roles at Arrow and Celltech meant that he came with "a lot of transactional orientation". The fact that he and Garland worked together at Celltech and therefore know each other well (Fellner was CEO and subsequently chairman of Celltech before it was sold to UCB) also reduced the risk inherent of appointing a new CEO externally.
Fellner, who had joined Acambis as a non-executive board member in February 2006, was appointed chairman last October. He explained that over the last few years the company had made efforts to try to diversify away from its established biodefence business, but that progress on that front had disappointed investors.
Cameron had been instrumental in setting up the biodefence business but the decision by US Department of Health and Human Services in November last year to remove Acambis from the US Government's Modified Vaccinia Ankara ('MVA') smallpox vaccine tender process hastened his exit from the company. At the time, the board at Acambis had instigated a review following Fellner's appointment as chairman as to whether the company had the right management mix to "build up Acambis' non-biodefence business".
"The separation is amicable as Gordon has known about the decision for a few weeks now and he is currently supervising our cost reduction programme," Fellner added.
The company plans to reduce its cost base by around 20% with the majority of the cost saving initiatives being implemented in 2007. Headcount will be reduced from 260 by approximately 15%, with the plan to save approximately GBP 7m per annum from full year 2008 onwards.
Acambis announced the appointments of William Jenkins and John Lambert as non-executive directors in November. Jenkins was the former head of clinical development and regulatory affairs at Novartis during the 90s, while Lambert was responsible for doubling the revenues of US biotech Chiron's (now Novartis) vaccines business from 2001 to 2005, as well as more recently being retained as adviser for Crucell in its acquisition of Berna Biotech. Both of these appointments will aid Acambis in its negotiations with the US DHHS and its move to generate more revenues from its non-biodefence business. Acambis is capitalised at GBP 136.7m.
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