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Biogen Confirms Icahn's Two Board Seats

Scott Eden

Carl Icahn -- in this case, at least -- was right.

According to the final tally of votes, Biogen Idec(BIIB Quote) shareholders last week elected two out of four of the corporate raider's dissident nominees to the board, the company announced Tuesday after the close of trading.

Icahn had been loudly claiming as much since the voting was conducted at a contentious annual shareholder meeting last Wednesday.

Icahn's two new directors are Alexander Denner, a career investment manager and Icahn lieutenant with a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, and Dr. Richard Mulligan, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. Both were the directors that Icahn pushed onto the board of ImClone during his ultimately successful bid to sell the company (Eli Lilly(LLY Quote) acquired ImClone for $6.5 billion last August).

Icahn wants Biogen to follow a similar path. He began his battle to take control of the company two years ago, and has since indicated that he wants either to sell it or break it into two separate entities -- one that focuses on cancer treatments, and the other on neurology.

Ichan's attempt to influence Biogen ought to prove interesting. The shareholder activist has made it no secret that he holds its current bosses in low regard, calling them overcompensated and "dysfunctional."

Biogen shares climbed 55 cents to $52.38 in Tuesday's session.