Elan's Martin Named Worst Biotech CEO of '08

For sheer mediocrity and do-nothingness, it would be hard to top Howard H. Pien of Medarex (MEDX Quote). Chris Clements over-promised and under-delivered at Savient Pharmaceuticals (SVNT Quote), but he resigned so he can't be considered. Martine Rothblatt of United Therapeutics (UTHR Quote) wouldn't normally be found on a Worst CEO list, but she does now after the company rewarded company executives with lower-priced stock options following disappointing clinical trial results.

Then there are guys like Stephen Sherwin of Cell Genesys (CEGE Quote) and Michael Weiss of Keryx Pharmaceuticals (KERX Quote). Both companies had drugs blow up this year, but neither was much of a surprise, so they get a pass.

But back to Martin, our winner. Martin spent much of early 2008 whispering sweet words of encouragement about bapineuzumab into the ears of fawning analysts and mutual fund portfolio managers. To hear Martin tell the story, bapineuzumab was going to be the revolutionary cure for Alzheimer's -- the first drug to actually halt or even reverse the loss of cognitive function and memory that makes Alzheimer's such a devastating disease.

Never mind that bapineuzumab was only in a phase II study at the time, or that the small amount of clinical data on the drug already publicly available showed mixed results at best. None of that mattered.

As I wrote in a previous post-mortem on Elan's blowup, Martin "fostered an arrogant, insular culture at Elan where friends were rewarded and anyone who dared question the company was frozen out."