CEO Who Led Growth to Leave MedImmune

MedImmune chief executive David M. Mott, who led the Gaithersburg biotech through years of rapid expansion and its sale to the British drug giant AstraZeneca, will leave the company at the end of July.

Mott, a former investment banker with no formal scientific training, did not indicate why he was leaving. His departure marks the end of the leadership that forged one of the local biotech community's most successful companies.

"He's going to take the summer to spend time with his family and friends and figure out what he'll do next, as he looks forward to the rest of his career," MedImmune spokeswoman Jamie Lacey said.

In the announcement yesterday, AstraZeneca named Tony Zook, chief executive of AstraZeneca's North American business and executive vice president of global marketing, MedImmune's interim head. Zook is based in Wilmington, Del. The company will be working with MedImmune's staff to replace Mott, Lacey said.

A year ago, AstraZeneca purchased MedImmune for $15.6 billion, one of the biggest drug company acquisitions in recent years. Mott stood to make more than $145 million from the deal. MedImmune detailed Mott's potential payday -- $133.5 million in stock-option payouts and $12.2 million in other payments -- in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing before the sale closed.

Mott agreed to stay at MedImmune for a year after the acquisition and got a bonus for doing so. His departure is the next logical transition in merging the two firms, said John T. McCamant, editor of the Medical Technology Stock Letter.

"David Mott is a CEO, not a cutting-edge scientist," McCamant said. "He wasn't an asset AstraZeneca acquired when they bought MedImmune."

In the months before the sale, Mott and MedImmune came under pressure from activist investor Carl C. Icahn, who said he was dismayed by the firm's "very lackluster management." Icahn had taken a stake in MedImmune and warned that he would shake up the board unless the company put itself up for sale.

At the time, MedImmune's lead drug, Synagis, was approaching its 10th year in the market. There was concern that Synagis, which is aimed at preventing respiratory infection in infants, might not repeat its high sales growth, threatening how the firm's stock might be traded.

So Mott went to his board of directors and recommended that they sell.

Six weeks later, following a competitive bidding war, AstraZeneca acquired the company.

David Brennan, AstraZeneca's chief executive, called the deal "a significant acceleration" for the firm's endeavor into biotech. Mott called the transition from independence to a unit of a big company "heart-wrenching and challenging."