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Corporate warfare
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It’s almost American Academy of Ophthalmology time, and every day brings with it some sort of news about the ongoing battle for the soul of Allergan.
Will the victor be David E. I. Pyott and the status quo — traditional pharma with a sizable in-house research and development (R&D) program and budget? Or will Valeant and its partner William A. Ackman, principal of Pershing Square Capital Management, prevail in bringing with them a business model that favors merciless attention to financial detail and R&D by acquisition?
The most recent news concerned the Valeant/Ackman demand for a special shareholders meeting and their desire to have it occur earlier than the Allergan-proposed December date. After much haggling, name-calling and a general gnashing of teeth, all parties agreed to the original Dec. 18 date.
Why does it matter to you/us? Why should we care? Because it’s time for us to convene in Chicago for AAO, the biggest shindig of our academic year. It’s time for us, and for that matter Allergan and Valeant/Bausch + Lomb, to put all of our collective attention where it belongs: educating the world’s ophthalmologists about the latest developments in eye care from academia and industry. These two very big, very important companies need to focus on us.
In my 20-plus years of practice and consulting, I’ve met precisely one company chief financial officer — a lovely man. For the next month or so, he and his financial brethren will continue to concentrate on the existential battle noted above, as is right and proper.
All of the rest of the hands should be as “on deck” as in past Academy meetings, out there telling you and me what they’ve got now, what’s coming and how they are going to help us take care of our patients.
I, for one, would surely like to see and hear from more members of senior management from both companies in Chicago than my colleagues and I did in Boston for American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.
The simple fact that both sides apparently stepped back and noticed that AAO was in October and agreed to a later date for Armageddon gives me a bit of hope.